Children of Fear
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: "We are warriors. We are avengers. We are assassins. We are the Nightmare Children. We are Shame, Death, Loss, Dark, Danger, Wrath, Pain, Solitude, Suffering, Judgment, Tempest, and Unknown. Come on Guardians, try to kill us — try to kill the children you left for dead." [T for violence, angst, morbidness, the usuals.]
1. Names

**A/N: Well here we are, on the anniversary of my pathetic claim to fame known as Dear Fanfiction Writers, not with a special tribute or whatever kinda crap you were expecting but rather with an insanely strange fic whose origins even I can't trace and whose growth is mainly due to the help of other people, namely:  
- My amazing beta-reader-for-fifteen-chapters Mystichawk  
- My little sis to whom I dedicated Insanity the unspoken Thirteenth Nightmare Child (dude seriously I love you but you really gotta stop freaking out every time they mention one of the twelve kids in church)  
- My totally-not-biological sisters BlackAngelDarkLife and the girl known as Amelia Selene in Legends of Awesomeness  
- My accidental plot-bunny-maker ParadoxalPaladin to whom I spoke maybe once  
- and all you other guys who hit on at least one thing from this tangled mess of ideas in your reviews. You know who you are.**

**I wish I could have done you guys and your contributions to this story all the justice you deserve but alas, here are the days when I hate everything I write and post it with shame. Abby, I love you and you blew me out of the water with your awesomeness for these first 15 chapters, but since we were forced to part ways I bombed chapters 16-end. So…past 15, don't expect as much. T_T**

**Well I suppose I'll just shut up now and let you read the freaking story already. Enjoy, cry of embarrassment at my poor attempts at revising what was already (Mystichawk's) perfection, and be confused to Manny and back because sure as Hades I am too.**

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**Children of Fear**

.

_They are almost ready. They are almost ready._

The thought continued to roll through his mind as he glided smoothly, without a single sound, through the corridors of his cavern home. Stalactites dripped black water from deep underground rivers and springs and the walls glistened as he passed, sending ripples of shadows throughout the caves. A pair of golden eyes encased in black darted out from a crevice, and he raised his hand to call it closer. The black horse, massive in size and terrifying in demeanor, trotted over to him and whinnied.

"Are they ready?" he asked.

The horse spoke to him in a shadow-language only he could understand, whinnying and stomping its hooves for emphasis.

"Good, good," he replied, stroking the horse's mane. "You are a noble servant, Onyx." He then dismissed the shadow-horse with a snap of his fingers and headed down the echoing corridor, eager to see what fruit his months of research and work had yielded.

From the minute the Guardians had set his own Nightmares on him, sending him tumbling back into this hole in the ground, and from the second he had somehow thrown them off and regained conscious thought, he had been thinking of only two things: justice and revenge. He deserved a chance to be believed in, didn't he? After thousands of years of being alone? That Frost brat had dealt with only a few hundred years, and _he _had been welcomed into the Guardian fold with open arms!

Pitch Black felt his hands clench as he walked stiffly and purposefully towards the cavern where _they_ would be waiting after recovering from their transformations. A measly three hundred years! That was nothing! _Nothing_ compared to how long _he _had been in the dark, cursed to live only in the shadows!

He let out a slow breath to calm himself. _But that is all about to change, _he thought as he entered the room where his greatest masterpieces lay waiting. Waiting…for him.

They all lay in one row, side by side. All he could see were their pale faces as the black sand writhed and curled around them like living bonds. He bent down to look at one. She was about six years of age, but there was something timeless about her. The hair that wasn't hidden by her blanket of nightmare sand was a dark shade of silver-grey and her face was the color of ashes, just like his. Their transformations had been successful. If even their real parents were to see them now, they would be utterly unrecognizable.

"They are beautiful," he said softly, staring at the pale faces one by one. "And they are now mine."

He stood and clapped his hands sharply, and the nightmare sand cocooning the twelve small bodies detached itself smoothly to float back several feet, returning to their normal horse shapes.

The children were all still asleep. Pitch bent down again, taking the silver-haired girl's hand in his.

"Wake up," he crooned in his best attempt at gentleness. "It's time to wake up."

The girl's eyes fluttered open, then they widened with confusion and fear.

"Don't worry," said Pitch before she could cry out. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Who — " she croaked. As softly as he could manage, he put a hand on her shoulder.

"Relax. Your voice will come back to you in time." He helped the girl to her feet and dusted the remnants of nightmare sand off her shoulder. "I am your father." The lie slipped as easily off his tongue as a drop of rain from the sky.

"Father?" she repeated in confusion.

"Yes. And these are your brothers and sisters." He turned her around gently so she could see the other eleven children, still fast asleep. She just stared at them blankly. Her blue-grey eyes traveled down the line once, twice, taking in their almost identical clothes and ashen faces. Then those eyes darted up and met his, letting him see all of the intelligence and curiosity in their depths before they once more averted their path.

"Can you tell me your name?" he asked.

"My — my name?" she repeated, as if saying the words for the first time in her life.

"Yes." If she told him her name, her _real_ name, then all the trouble of the magic would have been for nothing and these children would be thousands of times more difficult to manipulate.

"I…I — " she stuttered. He felt the fear flare up inside her and the satisfaction flare up inside him. "I don't remember!"

"Calm down, calm down," he soothed, turning her around to face him. "I'm not going to — "

"I can't remember my name!" she cried, a clear note of panic resounding in her voice. A small drop of satisfaction touched on his cold heart. The magic had worked.

He knelt to her level and gripped her shoulders gently but firmly. This was his first test. "Girl — "

"I can't remember anything! Not my name, nothing!" She started to cry then. Tears started running down her cheeks and she covered her eyes with her tiny hands as she wept.

Then a small smile crept up Pitch's lips. "I think I know your name," he said, laying on the gentleness thick. How long had it been since he'd comforted a child like this? Centuries? Certainly. He hadn't even been_ seen_ by a child for over a thousand years, other than those brats at Easter.

"You do?" the little girl asked, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

"Yes." He straightened up. "You are Shame. The fear of humiliation." She was not ashamed; she _was _Shame. The physical embodiment of it, so to speak. He'd thought even this part through and it made sense that the children of Fear himself would have odd names to fit their personalities. The next part was to ease some of the more personified fear-magic into their systems.

She did not seem distressed by this. Quite the opposite, in fact. The learning of her name seemed to give her something to hold on to and she managed a weak smile, bowing her head.

"Now, go sit over there while I wake your brothers and sisters," Pitch instructed, gesturing towards the area that his Nightmares had set up for the children. Twelve black blankets had been neatly folded and placed at the steps of his throne, right beside the iron globe. Of course, these blankets were only a temporary measure; after he woke all of the children he would escort them to their separate bedchambers. Now he watched Shame tiptoe tentatively to one of the blankets and sit down, all the while staring at the glittering globe with wide eyes.

Pitch allowed himself a small smile, then he turned away from Shame and towards the next sleeping child in line. This one was a boy of about a year older than the girl, with smooth, shoulder-length black hair and deathly pale skin. The instant Pitch made contact with that skin with his own hand, the child's eyes opened and locked with Pitch's. Amber with amber. Pitch smiled.

"Hello," he greeted, letting go of the boy's hand. He had a feeling this one would be a bit easier to handle.

He looked up at the Nightmare King with a blank, indifferent gaze. Pitch's smile broadened. "My name is Pitch. I am your father."

The boy nodded and got to his feet without a sound. His amber eyes flickered around his surroundings, taking everything in with a single glance. First at Pitch, then at the Nightmares, then at the other children lying peacefully behind him with their hands folded over their chests.

"Do you know your name?" Pitch asked. He knew for sure that the magic had worked for Shame, but it never hurt to double check.

The boy considered the words, then shrugged indifferently.

He was a bit annoyed by the boy's lack of verbal response and, for a second, he contemplated giving the boy a taste of nightmare sand. Then he thought better of it.

_I must be a good father to these children, _he scolded himself sternly, gazing down at the unnamed boy. _To convince them that I am on their side._

He took a deep breath and appraised the child. His golden eyes were bright with intelligence and his thin mouth had a small quirk to it. For a few minutes, neither spoke. Pitch continued to watch him for any signs of what his name might be. He had figured out Shame's name from her personality, so why couldn't he do the same for this boy?

_Let's see, _he mused silently, scanning the boy up and down. _He won't talk, and he's indifferent._

"Do you fear me?" Pitch asked, looking down and meeting the boy's unblinking gaze once again.

To Pitch's surprise, the boy didn't flinch under the glare. Instead he smiled evilly, revealing two rows of sharp, white teeth. Then he shook his head crisply and the smile melted back into indifference.

Pitch smiled in turn. "I know your name," he said confidently.

The boy cocked his head, waiting for the answer.

"You are Death," replied Pitch after a small hesitation. "The fear of passing over, whether it be oneself or others." At this, the boy nodded and smiled again.

_Death is silent, _thought Pitch as he gestured for the boy to sit next to Shame and then moved to the next child. _Death is also indifferent. Who else could he be?_

The next child was another girl, small and slight even at her six years. She had short silver-streaked black hair and she clutched a small toy against her chest. Pitch bent down and reached out to touch the toy, but she sat bolt upright and scrambled back before he could.

"Go away!" she cried. Oh, she sounded just like him. Commanding and expecting to be obeyed on the instant.

"Listen, I'm not going to hurt you," Pitch said as gently as he could. Even though he was the Boogeyman and it was his job to be the bump in the night, he still jumped a bit when she sat up and spoke so quickly.

"This is mine!" she snapped, hugging the toy. He could see now that it was a small, dirty doll with a grimy black skirt, black yarn hair, and black button eyes. It looked well worn, yet loved.

"I'm not going to take it," he said slowly, reaching out for her hand. "My name is Pitch, and I am your father."

The girl stopped trying to escape him and froze, staring at him with her stormy grey eyes. "F — father?" she repeated, still clutching the doll like it was the most important thing she'd ever owned. Considering who she'd been, it probably was.

"Yes. And I think I know your name," he added.

"My name?" she repeated, frowning.

"Yes. Your name is Loss. You are the fear of the temporal things of life being taken."

Her eyes widened, then a small smile crept across her face and those deep grey eyes began to glow with a mischievous, yet cautious light that gave the impression of a thief. Pitch gestured over to where Shame and Death were sitting. "Your brother and sister are over there. Would you like to sit by them?"

Loss shrugged and sprang up lithely. He watched her as she stepped up to a blanket and plopped down, glaring at Death and Shame. Oh, this would definitely be an interesting few years.

"Don't steal my name!" she called to him as he turned to the next child in line.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Loss," Pitch said, smiling humorlessly. _Now, onto the next one._

The next boy, who was about seven years old like Death, also had black hair, but it was curly and pure black, not even reflecting the barest hint of any light. Pitch reached down, brushed aside the kid's bangs, and put a hand on his pale forehead. Even after that it took several seconds for the cold contact to register in the boy's sleeping mind and for him to wake up. When he did, Pitch saw that his eyes were coal-black, devoid of all color and light — even the whites of his eyes looked somehow dark — and, for a moment, he considered giving this one a plain name, like Coal. But he dismissed this thought as soon as it appeared. That would be ridiculous. The child had to have a name that explained his personality and his specific brand of fear.

He smiled stiffly, helping the boy up. "My name is Pitch. I'm your father." He was getting used to repeating the lie so many times, and he knew that he would have to say it many times more.

The boy nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. Do I have a name?" he asked. His voice was smooth and inquisitive, so much like Pitch's own that it slightly unnerved him. His mouth was set in a blank, curious smile, which actually looked kind of cute with the sprinkling of freckles on his cheeks.

"I'm not sure what your name is yet," Pitch confessed. "Do you have a preference?" He hadn't asked the others this because Death would have said nothing and Shame and Loss probably would have picked girly names like Princess or Bella or something else completely unsuitable for ones of their kind.

But this boy was different. "Dark," he said seemingly without even thinking about it. "My name is Dark."

Pitch nodded. "Dark. That is appropriate. That is what all human souls fear, after all. In the deepest, primal parts of their minds they all fear the dark."

The child seemed satisfied with this. Pitch told him to sit with Shame, Death, and Loss on the blankets and he did so, without question.

Pitch then turned to the next child. This one was a five-year-old girl, with very long, thick black hair that almost reached her knees. It was spread beneath her like a nest and Pitch was briefly reminded of another child whom he'd known with hair like that. He saw her face, laughing and smiling up at him. Then her face faded away like the wisp of a distant cloud and he dismissed the thought.

_Can't stand around daydreaming, _he reminded himself, bending down to wake up the long haired girl.

Her skin was the color of burned bread, blackish brown, and when she opened her eyes Pitch was a little surprised to see they were the color of bright, fresh violets. The contrast made her look quite pretty. She grinned at him and jumped up, ignoring his hand, gaping at the room like it was the most amazing place she had ever seen. Her eyes, just like Dark's, took in the entirety of the chamber. The globe, his throne, the other children, and finally him.

"Who're you?" she asked. "What's your name? Where are we?" She then caught sight of one of the Nightmares and whirled around, letting out a delighted squeal. "Horsey!" And before Pitch could stop her, she ran towards the Nightmare and started chasing it. "Can I ride it?" she asked over her shoulder as she skipped after the panicked prancing horse. It was obviously a rhetorical question. She was going to ride it even if he said no. Which he did.

"Wha — no!" Pitch was a little confused. This child was a bit different than the first few. More energetic and child-like. It was a little distressing.

"Tough!" she called. In one swift motion, she leapt into the air, grabbed onto the somewhat disturbed horse's mane, and pulled herself onto its back in one swift motion. Pitch was about to run over to her and get her off the prancing horse the hard way, but something stopped him.

"I know your name!" he called to the girl on the horse.

She froze, as did the Nightmare she was "riding". Then both of them slowly turned their heads to face him. "You do?" the girl asked.

Pitch nodded. It was obvious, really. "Come here and I'll tell you."

She grinned and clambered up until she was standing on the Nightmare's saddle, then she jumped off the horse, almost breaking her neck in the process by getting her foot caught in the stirrup and falling towards the hard stone floor. Pitch unintentionally winced, but the girl twisted before she hit the ground and Pitch caught a flash of her bright violet eyes. There was an exulted and faintly insane light in those eyes and as she fell, she landed on her tiptoes, balancing on them for a few seconds and then tipping forward. Again, Pitch felt his heart leap into his chest and he took a step to stop her, but then she flashed him a smile and he stopped to watch her.

She effortlessly turned the tip into a smooth cartwheel, then another. She was cartwheeling around the room now and Pitch watched in amazement as she twisted again and turned it into a back handspring, rocketing up into the air like a cannonball.

_She's some kind of acrobat or something, _he thought, somewhat impressed. _She will be an excellent warrior…once I get her to listen to me._

As she flew through the air, she wrapped her arms around herself and tucked her body into a small, black-haired ball. Then gravity took over and she fell against the ground with force that would have shattered the bones of a normal person, but she bounced up into the air again almost like a rubber ball. The momentum carried her towards him, and, just as he was about to dive out of the way, she rolled to a stop about a foot away from _his _foot.

Hesitantly, he bent down and poked her head. "Um…"

She didn't reply, didn't even _move _for at least five silent seconds, then she unfurled lightning-quick and hopped to her feet, wearing a wide grin. Her eyes were still alight with that faintly insane look, but she wasn't even breathing hard. Not surprising, for some reason.

Pitch sighed. There could be no doubt about who she was.

"Well?" she asked, smiling happily. "What's my name?"

He reached down and brushed a strand of black hair from her face in a way he supposed a caring, loving father would. "You are Danger. The fear of risks and chance."

Danger gave him the pouty lip. "That's not much of a nice name," she said, crossing her arms. "And I'm not scared. I'm not scared of anything!"

Pitch shrugged. "Well, it suits you," he remarked. Part of his mind was still thinking about that stunt she'd pulled with the Nightmare. It was true. She didn't look afraid in the slightest. Then why —

She considered this. Then her pouting face vanished and was replaced with a smile. "Okay. I'm Danger."

Pitch resisted the urge to say, _Yes, you certainly are,_ but he instead told her to go sit by her siblings and wait. She obeyed, cheerfully skipping off to join the others. He watched her go and then cast his eye to the other children. Death and Shame were both silent and indifferent. Dark was rolling his eyes as if there were ten million other places he'd rather be, and seven billion people he'd rather be with. Loss was staring at Danger with a confused expression on her face. As the long-haired girl came to sit beside the others, she started talking about how fun it was to ride the "horsies".

Sighing, Pitch turned to the next child. Danger would be a bit of a challenge to handle, but he would manage. Eventually.

The sixth boy in line, one of the oldest at the age of eight, had hair the exact color of Pitch's own and styled in the exact same way. Pitch snorted. The child looked so much like him that it was uncanny. The only detail of his face that wasn't like Pitch's was his nose. Whereas Pitch's was rather large and somewhat hooked, this boy's was slender and rather unremarkable. The transformation magic, which once it was cast worked on its own, had a sense of humor.

Pitch touched the boy's forehead and he immediately jerked awake.

"Go away!" he shouted, striking out with his feet and fists wherever he could.

Pitch jumped back in surprise. Then he regained his composure as he felt the boy's fear, masked by his blustering, burning inside him. "Calm down," he said in the same gentle voice as he had used with the other children. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The boy's eyes were fierce and bright orange, almost red, and they glowed with the angry light of hot coals. Pitch involuntarily took a step back. Those eyes were just as unsettling as Danger's manic violet ones, but somehow Pitch kept his emotions in check as he smiled.

"My name is Pitch," he continued as kindly as possible. "Do you have a name?"

The boy's eyes blazed with fury and he nearly shouted, "No! I don't!"

Over on the blankets, Shame flinched, Death just sat there, Loss stroked her doll's hair somewhat creepily, Dark — who did not seem to be paying attention in the least — played shadow puppets on the wall, and Danger rolled her eyes and muttered something about anger management.

"All right, all right, no need to shout," Pitch chided somewhat anxiously.

Determinedly but unsteadily, the boy got to his feet and continued to glare at him. Pitch sighed for the umpteenth time that day. "Well, your name is evident from your actions."

The eight-year-old blinked, momentarily losing his livid expression. "Say what?"

"Your name," repeated Pitch. Every time he told them their names they seemed to calm down. Hopefully it would work for this furious boy. "You are Wrath. The fear of others' anger and hatred."

He blinked again. He seemed to be considering this. The silence in the cave was only broken by Danger's incessant chattering and the occasional flat input from Dark for her to shut up, even though and especially because no one was listening to her constant rambling.

"Wrath," said the boy after a while. "I think I can handle that." He took a step closer to Pitch. "Where am I?"

"You are in my lair. I'm your father," Pitch answered. It was a lie he'd have to live for years to come, he knew, but it was necessary if his plan was going to work.

Wrath smirked. "Right," he said slowly, obviously not believing it. Those fiery eyes had dimmed down to a gentle, pulsating flame as they traveled around the room, taking in everything. Pitch watched those eyes widen in curiosity at the sight of the Nightmares and then narrow as he saw Danger and the others. "Who're they?"

"Your brothers and sisters," said Pitch.

The indifferent smirk on Wrath's face turned into a full-out smile, which slightly unnerved Pitch with its unintentional wickedness. "Ah. Well then, I'd better go and say hello." And, out of his own accord, he walked towards the other children with a brisk, purposeful stride.

Pitch watched him go, a pride swelling in his chest that he hadn't felt since…since some time in his distant past, a time that had been lost in the memories of an immortal. It was a good kind of pride, though. A kind that he could get used to, even enjoy.

The girl following Wrath was also about eight and also had black hair, though hers was long and smooth. She was very, very pretty, even in sleep and at this young age, with flawless cinnamon-colored skin, perfect lips, silky hair, and a cute little button nose. And when Pitch woke her up with a simple touch to her cheek, he saw that she had fiery eyes as well. But these eyes were darker, like the deep crimson shade of fresh blood, and her hair was streaked with the same color.

"Hello," he said.

"Um…hello," she replied, sounding somewhat doubtful of her own voice. He offered her his arm to help her up and she took it, bracing against him to stand herself up. But when she got to her feet, she let out a cry of anguish and sank back down to the ground.

This one's name wasn't hard to figure out.

"It's okay," he soothed gently, stroking her hair and taking hold of her hands again, just like he had seen other fathers do to their beloved daughters. Somehow it was easy, as if he'd done it before. "Just bear through the pain, Pain."

She gave him a strange look but did as he asked, trying to get to her feet again. When she did, this time she stayed up.

"Thank you," she whispered gratefully.

It had been a while — no, eternity — since he had heard those words spoken to him with such sincerity. So it took him a while to recover the correct response. "You're welcome," he said as he helped her limp over to the blankets where the other six sat. "My name is Pitch. I'm your father."

"My — my father?" she stammered, gazing up at him with wide eyes.

_Always with the wide eyes, _he thought. "Yes. I am your father, and you are my daughter Pain. You are the fear of harm, physical or mental."

She didn't seem to hear the last part and, if she did, she obviously did not care much. After giving him a small and grateful smile, she sat down next to Danger and started talking shyly with her, glancing every so often over at Wrath.

Pitch shook his head, then he headed back to the children. This eighth one in line was a six-year-old boy, skinny and pale like the rest. But contrary to all that he had seen so far, he had long dark brown hair and when he awoke at Pitch's touch, almond-shaped green eyes stared up at him.

"Hey," he said flatly.

Pitch blinked. The kid sounded tired, of all things. He had been sleeping for _months!_ How in darkness could he be _tired?!_

He cleared his throat. "Are you all right?"

The boy nodded without comment.

"Well, I am your father. My name is Pitch," he said, trying and failing yet again to sound gentle.

The child nodded, again without comment.

They both sat in silence for a few endless moments. The boy had folded his pale hands over his bony knees and propped his head on his knuckles.

Pitch coughed uncomfortably. "Do you know your name?" he inquired, trying to move things along.

Without taking his eyes off the Nightmare King, the boy shook his head once.

Pitch blinked. Well, he didn't really know either. This child gave no hints about his name. If he didn't already know better, he would have said that the boy was Death. But that was ridiculous. Death was right behind him and honestly, he didn't think that a soft-looking boy with such vivid green eyes — like the green of fresh grass — could ever be Death.

"Well, er, would you like to go sit with the others?" asked Pitch, gesturing to the seven children sitting by the glittering globe.

The boy shrugged and slowly, steadily, sluggishly, got to his feet and drifted over to the group of children. He sat on the farthest blanket away from the other children, pulled his legs towards his chest, and stuck his thumb into his mouth.

_Interesting, _Pitch thought.

And then Danger had the folly to scramble over to her new brother. "Hi!" she greeted cheerily. "What's your name?"

The nameless boy just pulled his legs closer and turned away.

Pitch knew he should be trying to wake the other children, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the boy with the green eyes. Now Danger was tapping his shoulder, trying to get him to talk to her.

"Hello, hello, hello," she persisted, poking him on the shoulder when he didn't say anything. "I'm right here, you know. You can answer me. What's your name?" She took the following silence as an answer. "He didn't give you a name? Wow. He gave me a name. I'm Danger, but that's a bit long. I'm thinking of shortening it. Dang…nah, that doesn't sound right." Dark snickered and whispered something derogatory about Danger to Death, which the former didn't seem to hear. She just kept talking. "Maybe Ger. But that doesn't sound right either. Dannie, maybe…?"

The boy mumbled something and Danger tilted her head, cupping her hand against her ear. "I didn't hear that. What'd you say?"

"Go away," the boy said tiredly, plucking his thumb out of his mouth with a wet _pop _before he spoke and then sticking it back in after his two words were uttered.

Danger blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I said _go away. _I just want to be left alone," he insisted, closing his eyes and leaning even farther away from her. She scootched a few inches closer.

"Danger!" Pitch called. "Leave him alone. Oh, and boy." The green-eyed child looked up. "I know your name."

For the first time since he'd awoken, those eyes lit with interest. "Really?"

"Yes. You are Solitude," said Pitch from across the room. "The fear of being left alone, and the fear of total and complete independence."

Solitude's face split into a smile and he inclined his head respectfully. He still never took that thumb out of his mouth. Pitch took a note of which hand it was on and reminded himself never to let the kid touch him with that hand. It was his right hand.

So eight down, four to go.

The next girl, the ninth, looked a lot like Shame, except that her hair was grey instead of silver and obscured her face entirely. Even though he could not see her face, she seemed, to him, somehow older than the rest.

At his touch she sat up slowly, keeping her head bent forward.

"Hello," greeted Pitch uncomfortably.

She did not speak.

"Can you talk?" asked Pitch.

She nodded weakly and emitted a raspy sound that might have been a yes.

"Don't worry, your voice will return," he assured her. "Here. Let me help you up."

Frantically, she shook her head, still keeping her face hidden behind her veil of hair. Pitch was confused.

"You can walk…can't you?"

She shook her head again.

He bent down farther to inspect her feet. They were thin, grey, and bony, like the rest of her, and they didn't look damaged too badly. Dirty, callused, and cut, maybe, but not enough to stop her from walking.

"Why can't you walk?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Can't."

Pitch leaned back and frowned. She couldn't walk, she kept her face hidden, and she could barely speak. But even through this afflicted shell of low, blatant misery and affliction he sensed a hidden power within her, an angry flashing core hidden inside. Well, that pointed to only one name. But he had to be sure before he told her.

"Can you push back your hair?" he asked.

She shook her head more violently than when he had asked her to walk.

He hesitated before uttering the next word. "Please?" It felt strange and new on his tongue. He hadn't said it with an honest truth for a long time.

But the girl only shook her head again.

Pitch sighed. He knew she wasn't going to do it of her own accord, so he snapped his fingers and a cord of nightmare sand trickled from his palm, writhing and wriggling until he knelt and released it by the girl's ear. It hung limply for a few seconds, entangled in that mat of hair. Then, before she could do anything about it, the cord twisted around her hair, behind her neck, and back around. It looped her hair into a loose ponytail and pulled it back so that Pitch could see her face clearly.

"Oh," he said, once he had gotten over his initial shock at seeing her. Her eyes were closed and Pitch saw a tear running down her cheek. "I'm sorry." This, like the please, was actually genuine.

The girl's seven-year-old face was mottled with bruises and her lip was swollen. Scratches and cuts ran across her sickly grey face — the transformation magic had refused to touch them. Pitch had known how she'd gotten the wounds, but he had never seen her face clearly until now. He somehow knew that these wounds would never go away, just like Loss would never allow anyone to touch her doll and Danger would always take risks. It was the same thing, though he wished he could clean it up for her and she would heal.

_But then she wouldn't be who she is, _he thought sadly.

"I'm…" Pitch stopped. Trying to get the words out to this silently agonized child was hard. He could not take his eyes off her flawed, scarred face. Just because he was an egotistical fear spirit with plans of world domination didn't mean that he would ever physically hurt a child — and such a display of meek, helpless suffering went against even what few flawed morals he had. "I'm your father."

"Who — " she stammered in her hoarse voice, "who — did…this — to me?"

Pitch lowered his head. He could not tell her who'd done it; he wouldn't dare mention them at all. But that spark of light inside of him, that shred of goodness buried and trampled on by the demons that made him who he was, was still persisting, and it had told him on the day that life with him would probably be better than life with the family that didn't care for her. That was why he had chosen her as the ninth of his new children.

"I don't know," he lied. "But I know your name."

For the first time her eyes opened, but with a struggle, as if she didn't know if she should or even could. They were a washed out shade of nondescript grey and, like Solitude's, very tired. But this was the exhaustion of defeat, of torment, of suffering…

"My name?" she rasped. Pitch reflected that her voice seemed less harsh and afflicted now, though it might never completely clear.

"Yes. You are Suffering," he said finally. "The fear of abuse, physical or mental, and of hardships."

The girl nodded and the cord of nightmare sand broke, letting her hair fall loosely around and over her pockmarked face like a grey curtain once more.

"I understand," she whispered from behind the veil.

The Nightmare King turned his gaze from her hidden face down to her cut and bruised feet. It was clear that she could not walk, so he picked her up as gently as he could and carried her to one of the last blankets by the globe.

"There you go," he said awkwardly, setting her down. She was as still and quiet as a stone.

"Danger, leave her alone," he ordered over his shoulder as he walked to the next child.

Danger pouted, "Why?"

"Because I said so!" Pitch snapped. Oh yes, he was going to have trouble with this one. It was going to be a long next few years.

It wasn't the first time he had thought it, nor would it be the last.

The tenth child was a boy, abnormally tall for his seven years, and had neat grey hair combed over in a style that a much older man would have approved of. His nose was large, almost as large as Pitch's, but his face was squarer in shape. Pitch stared at this child long and hard, then he shook the boy's shoulder. He sat up hesitantly, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

"Hello," Pitch said.

The boy did not answer for a while, still yawning and rubbing his eyes.

Pitch tapped the boy on the shoulder again. "Hello?"

His hands dropped and he stared at Pitch with something akin to curiosity. "Hello?" he repeated slowly. His voice was surprisingly deep for one so young and lined with a distinctive British accent.

Pitch smiled stiffly. All of this smiling was making his face sore — how the heck did those peppy Guardians do it so much? "Hello to you, too. I'm your father, Pitch."

Something akin to shock flashed across the boy's face, and he blinked. "What did you just call me?"

Pitch stiffened. He'd heard all the jokes about his name, but they'd never been this direct. "What? No, no. I wasn't…I wasn't addressing you. I was saying that my name is _Pitch._"

This strangely serious-looking boy raised an eyebrow and frowned. "You…_are _aware that it is usually used in the derogatory sense…?"

"No, not — that," the Nightmare King groaned. He could literally _feel _the blood rushing to his face. "_Pitch, _with a _P, _as in _Pitch Black…"_

Over by the blankets, Wrath, Dark, Danger, and Shame all burst into laughter. Death even cracked a smile. Pitch sent them a loathing glare and they instantly shut up.

"Ah," said the boy, completely poker faced. "I see. You're my father?"

Pitch nodded, still a bit frazzled by the recent beginning-consonant-sounds episode. "Er…yes." He offered his hand to help the boy to his feet. They got up, but Pitch found that when the boy stood straight, he was only two feet shorter than the Nightmare King. Interesting. He hadn't been like that before.

"Do I have a name?" asked the boy in his low voice.

"I'm sure you do," his adoptive father replied. "But it will take some time to figure it out.

"How long?"

Pitch hesitated. "I don't know."

The boy looked him up and down for a while, then, when Pitch was getting a bit annoyed and uncomfortable with the close scrutiny, he asked, "Why is your hair like that?"

Pitch's hand instinctively flew up to his head to check his hair. This was the only one of the children so far who had made a personal remark like that. "It's naturally that way," he insisted, patting the black spikes that stuck out like a crest of feathers.

"Huh. And what about that outfit?"

Now Pitch was just getting annoyed. "You're the one wearing rags."

The boy looked down at his tattered pants and torn shirt. "Ah," he sighed. "But at least it's not a dress."

Pitch smiled wryly, too preoccupied to protest as to the technical name of the dress/robe thing that he always wore. "Now I know your name," he said. It had been the personal remarks that had given the name away.

"Really? What is it?" the boy asked, for once not scornful.

"Judgment," Pitch said proudly. "You are the fear of facing punishment and of the thoughts of others."

Judgment inclined his head, seemingly satisfied. "I was thinking of just that. Is there somewhere I can sit down?"

Pitch gestured towards the blankets and the abnormally tall and old-looking boy nodded, reaching the other children in three long strides.

_Two more to go,_ Pitch thought happily. _Then I can start preparing them for their parts in my plan._

The second to last child in the row, a five-year-old girl who also had black hair, took a little longer to wake up than any of the others so far. At first, she yawned and rolled over, mumbling something about sleeping in before going stone still again. When Pitch finally managed to wake her by shaking her shoulder and yelling into her ear, she stared at him with blue eyes so vivid they almost seemed purple.

These eyes blinked in surprise. "Um…hello," the girl said hesitantly before he could.

"Hello," Pitch replied stiffly, hunkering down to her level. All of this stooping was making his back hurt. If normal fathers did this as much as he had just done in the past twenty minutes, no wonder that elderly people suffered from chronic back pains. And this was coming from someone who was…um…oh, just forget it. Darkness knew how old he really was. "I'm your father. My name is Pitch Black."

"Oh. Hi Dad," the girl said crisply. This one was the American, that much was obvious. He was somewhat fascinated as to the change that had occurred in her — it was almost eerie how many scars could be washed away like this.

He smiled stiffly. Oh, his poor facial muscles burned like the blazes. "Do you know your name?" he asked. By now he was relatively convinced that the memory magic had worked, but it never hurt to double check.

The five-year-old frowned as she thought before shaking her shaggy head. Her hair was short, almost to a boy's length, but choppy and unkempt and all in her face, as if she had cut it with safety scissors and had never heard of the invention called a headband. "Nope. Sorry."

"Oh, no need to be sorry," said Pitch dismissively. "I am sure we'll figure it out."

The girl's face suddenly turned dark and angry, as if storm clouds had suddenly gathered. A strangely familiar kind of light flickered in her eyes — no, not light. _Lightning. _Pure electricity crackled in her sky blue eyes, causing Pitch to almost flinch with its intensity.

"Of course we'll figure it out!" she snapped, crossing her arms. "I'm not going to live the rest of my life without my name!"

"Easy. Easy," he blustered, like he would do with a riled-up Nightmare. Except that this wasn't a Nightmare, this was an independent, very angry human girl, albeit a human girl with the endurance and powers of an immortal. "I just meant that — "

"You just meant that I would have to live without a name!" she cried. "But I won't! I'll find my name! I will!"

Pitch sighed. "I'm not trying to say that you won't."

The girl's face suddenly went blank. Then she smiled. "Oh. Sorry about that," she said apologetically. "I didn't mean to be rude. You were saying?"

Frazzled, Pitch blinked. "Um, okay," he said uncertainly. Then the little invisible lightbulb blinked on above his head. "Oh, I think I know your name."

"Really?"

"Yes. Your name is Tempest, the fear of the raw power of earth and nature."

Tempest grinned. "Cool!" she exclaimed, getting to her feet. "Then, ah, I think I'll go over to those other guys over there."

Pitch swore he felt the calm damp air in the cavern begin to whip up as she got up and he was almost positive that she was walking an inch above the stone floor. But that was impossible; they only had some of their powers right now and he could remember nothing about giving her powers over the wind, because he didn't really have any of his own. Oh well. Who knew, maybe she'd had the powers before he took her in. Hades had said something about kids like those once. Shaking his head, he turned his eyes away from the Eleventh and towards the Twelfth.

This last child was tiny and curled up into a tight ball, hugging his knees close to his chest. There was a faded greyish-yellow blanket wrapped tightly around his body and over his head, hiding his face in shadow. If Pitch had not selected the children individually and did not know that there were exactly six females and six males, he would have been challenged to figure out what gender this child might be. The only things visible of the boy outside of the nondescript blanket were two tiny bare feet so pale that the bluish-grey veins could be seen spiderwebbing underneath the nearly translucent skin.

"Um…hello?" Pitch said hesitantly, nudging the boy's shoulder. As Pitch waited, watching him carefully, there were no signs of movement or even life and he was getting a bit worried. Could the transformation magic kill a person…?

"Wake up," commanded Pitch, shaking the child's shoulder. But he stubbornly refused to wake or even move. "Boy!" he snapped, more insistently this time.

There was nothing. Not even a twitch.

He was getting worried. All the children had been perfect, or capable of being fixed to perfection. Not a hair had been out of place — figuratively, of course, as Suffering's covered her entire face. Selective mutism, antisocial qualities, anger management issues, and weak legs could all be fixed. But a dead child…

In a flash of anger, Pitch clenched his fists. He knew that this had been too good to be true! Twelve was too many! He knew there were bound to be some small problems with such an advanced plan, but he hadn't anticipated _this!_ The boy refused to even move, let alone talk to him. He was obviously the weakest of the twelve; the runt of the litter, as it were. At least, if he was even alive. Of course, being immortal and physically incapable of showing vital signs, Pitch was unaware as to how to check if someone was alive or dead.

"BOY!" he bellowed a final time, tearing the blanket back. "Wake — " Then he froze, staring at the shaggy head beneath the blanket. The hair was pure white streaked with silver, like freshly fallen snow.

"FROST?!" he nearly shrieked, shoving the child onto his back.

No, no, no. It wasn't Frost. He wouldn't dare come here! Not only that, but this boy was too small, young, and skinny. Small, young, and skinny as the winter spirit was, he wasn't…this. _This _was someone else. Some_thing _else…

Pitch scrutinized the boy's four-year-old face. His eyes were closed and his face was the color of powdered milk. His features were unmemorable — no, not just that. Unmemorable would be an understatement. Every time Pitch blinked, he had to try to remember what he looked like. Hands nearly shaking, he stepped back a pace, wondering if the Twelfth Child could possibly be dead. His skin was cold enough that he could have been. The plan would work fine with just eleven, but…what would he do with the body?

_No. _It was impossible. He couldn't be dead. He'd been very much alive that night, and that magic _couldn't_ have killed him_. _He was strong enough…right?

Long moments — no, minutes — passed and still the boy did not move. Pitch was getting agitated.

"All right, that's it. I am sorry that I have to do this, but he just won't wake up." Pitch summoned a strand of nightmare sand and knelt next to the limp form on the ground. Taking the boy's chin in his free hand, Pitch forcefully opened his mouth and sent the tendril of sand down his throat. There. That would wake him up for sure.

And sure enough, as soon as Pitch closed his mouth, the boy began to thrash.

Pitch smiled, but it wasn't the stiff, fake smile he had been using with the children. This was a sinister smile, his vampire smile, the one that literally struck fear into hearts. "Finally. A result."

The boy squirmed and gasped, then he curled up into the ball again and moved no more. Pitch stared, confused. The sand should've — no. That was when another spasm shook the boy's whole body and jolted him out of his position. He lay there on the cold stones of the floor, coughing and gasping for breath, but still not opening his eyes. In fact he now seemed determined to keep them closed as he balled his tiny fists and squeezed his eyelids shut.

"Come on," Pitch snarled. "Wake up!"

As the boy tucked his head in as if to hide his face, the black sand began to pour out of his every orifice. His nose, his ears, his mouth. There was even some leaking out from beneath his eyelids, like he was crying. But this was not the strange part — the truly strange part was when Pitch saw that as the sand made its way back out into air, it was tainted with grains of silver and shimmered like a mirage.

He bent down. "Come," he ordered the silver sand. After a second of hesitation, it obeyed, curling up into an orb that quickly darkened to its usual black as he regained control of it and disappearing as he crushed it in his fingers.

"Wake up," he ordered, more gently this time but still firmly. "Come on. Wake."

The boy just shuddered and tried to curl up again, but Pitch would have none of that.

"Open your eyes or I shall send the sand in again," he snapped, gripping the boy's thin arm.

He did not move, and Pitch released him and turned away in disgust.

"Useless," he spat as he strode towards the other, wide-eyed children, intent on getting them to get this last child up. "Too afraid to even move. He can't even see — " Pitch froze at his own words. "He can't see…can he?" he repeated slowly, turning around to stare at the boy again.

The child was still curled up in the same position, trembling uncontrollably as if invisible beings tormented him.

"I know your name," Pitch said, knowing he could hear him.

The boy shivered and stiffened, but he didn't raise his head or uncurl as Pitch had thought he would.

He sighed and crossed the stone floor, back to the boy. He knelt down one more time.

"Get up, Unknown."

That was his name. Unknown. The fear of things invisible and unknown. At the sound of it, the boy jerked again and uncurled partially from his strange position, finally raising his head as if curious to find out what the strange noises outside the darkness meant, but was too scared to look. His eyes were still closed, so Pitch commanded, "Open your eyes."

Unknown obeyed. But to Pitch's surprise, the eyes were not dark, nor were they light. They were colorless and clear and filled with a strange, unidentifiable glimmer of intelligence that disproved his former theory that the child couldn't see. Not white, like a blind boy's, nor were they any other color in the spectrum. They reminded Pitch of twin pools of glass, reflecting his own face in their depths, along with fear, confusion, and a tiny light of hope.

"Unknown," said Pitch, "I am your father. You don't need to fear me."

The child stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights. Those unusually large, reflective eyes were wide, as if he couldn't imagine that something so wonderful as a father might be his.

"Come. I must introduce you to your brothers and sisters." Pitch reached for the boy's thin hand and pulled him up. Surprisingly, Unknown balanced and walked perfectly fine on those frighteningly thin bare feet. He didn't speak the whole time Pitch introduced him to his sisters and brothers and he only raised his head once, when Death's name was called. The two boys shared a look and, for the briefest instant, Pitch was sure that Unknown had let a smile flicker across his face.

_It makes sense, _he mused to himself. _The unknown and death go hand in hand._

When all was said and done, he escorted the children to the rooms that had been specially prepared for them and told them to make themselves comfortable, maybe clean up a bit before their first family dinner. It would be in an hour and specially catered by Gluttony, who was well known throughout the spirit world as not only an amazing eater but also an amazing cook. (Pitch knew that the selfish embodiment of that deadly sin would hold it over his head for centuries to come, but he had to feed these kids somehow.)

He reclined in his throne after the last door had been shut, listening to the faint sounds of the children as they explored their wing of the lair. Now that they had all been awakened from the transformations, he could begin planning in earnest. All of them had powers, he knew, and all of them had potential for evil. Well, he reconsidered, possibly not Shame or Danger. They both still seemed so…_human._

"Well, no matter," he dismissed aloud, looking at the globe beside him. So many lights…he just wanted to blot them out in one rage-induced sweep of his hand. But the time was not yet right, and he himself had not the strength to wield such power. That was what the children were for. "I'm sure they will grow out of it."

Yes, they would, but what about Unknown? Pitch had a very, very bad feeling about the boy — or lack of feeling whatsoever. He'd felt his own power in each of the others, but not this last one. And when he had been brought to his room he just stood in the center, unmoving as his mirror-like eyes took in everything around him.

"Unknown will show his power soon," said the Nightmare King confidently, pushing aside his doubts. The magic was guaranteed, after all. He had put just as much of his own power into that scrap of a boy as the rest of them. Possibly more.

Involuntarily he let out a low chuckle. This time, things would be different. Oh, so different. He remembered when he'd relied entirely on his own creations — the dreams he'd turned into Nightmares. It was a bit different to turn children into soldiers.

_My children are ready, _he thought as he stared up at the ceiling where the Man in the Moon watched from high above his caves. _Are your Guardians, old friend?_

* * *

**I have a really bad feeling that this thing's going to have more puns in it than The Pun War of '13…**

**Don't try to memorize all twelve Nightmare Children right now. Seriously, it's a whole lot easier if you just go with the flow and learn them as the story progresses.**


	2. Sendoff

**Thanks for all your awesome reviews!**

**FisherofMen: No, she'd be dead by now, as this story mainly takes place in 2024, but that'd be cool! Thanks anyway. :)  
FlightFeathers: Wow. That actually helps a lot…everyone else, listen up. This was a review. I want to know what you think about the characters and what questions about them you'd like answered, because this is a huge thing for me dealing with so many different personalities.  
chibissima: Good point. I was debating on whether or not to advertise the pairings, but I decided not to. There will be minor subplot-types of crushy high school romance/drama, but they will NOT influence the plot.  
Ice Child and The Puppeteer: Hmm…interesting. Could be a subcategory of Solitude and some of Judgment, like the fear of being responsible for yourself and the consequences of your own choices. But I've already written most of the story with these twelve and it's too late to turn back now, sorry! :(  
Guest number 1: …wow, son. If that ain't deep, I don't know what is.  
chocykitty: First of all, how dare you.  
Guest number 2: *looks around warily* Uhh…I get the feeling that you're all looking forward to an adorable, embarrassing-for-Pitch fic in which the kids are their cute preschool selves and melt his dark heart…I wish it could've happened that way, but…somehow it didn't. *cries* I'm trying my hand a few headcanons though…maybe in a drabble series later, but not here.**

**Meh.**

XXXXXXXXX

**Ten years later…**

Wrath's axe thudded into the bulls-eye of the target with terrifying speed and force. His fifteen-year-old sister Tempest whistled. "Not bad," she remarked.

The tall, muscular warrior was standing twenty feet away from the target, thus making Tempest's comment a complete understatement. The eighteen-year-old glared at her. "Do you think you can do better?"

She considered this for a few moments, idly fingering the feather of one of her black arrows. "Actually, yes. I do. Except that I could do the same with an arrow from two hundred feet, not just twenty." The fifteen-year-old gave that charming, icy smile that made Wrath want to just punch her face in. Then again, this was a common feeling for him.

"If you think — " he tried to argue, but then his other sister, Danger, raised one of her sharp, red-bladed throwing knives.

"Wrath," she sang in a seemingly cheerful voice that was much more dangerous than a snarl would have been, "remember your anger management."

Even though the lithe, long-haired Danger was a good thirty feet away and also perched on the top of the climbing wall, Wrath did not disobey her — she had a very sharp knife in her hand. He nodded sullenly and stepped aside to let her throw. Almost leisurely she flicked this knife, and it flashed across and down the room towards the target, which was a total of fifty feet away. Wrath expected the familiar _thunk_ of the knife on the target, but it didn't come. Instead he nearly jumped out of his skin when the knife impaled itself on the hilt of his axe, sticking in the inch-wide base of its black wooden handle with terrifying accuracy.

Tempest rolled her stormy blue eyes, along with several of the other Nightmare Children in the training room. "Oh, please," she sniffed. She strode away towards the back of their training room, as if to leave, but she didn't. She stopped and stood facing the wall, with her hand gripping her black bow. Then, in the space of a few seconds, she swerved around, loaded her bow, and fired off three shots in succession. One arrow thudded into the target a half centimeter from the top blade of Wrath's double-sided axe, the second arrow landed exactly a half centimeter from the lower blade, and the third arrow was shot seemingly into nowhere.

"Nice shot," said Shame sarcastically from across the room.

Tempest smiled again. But this one was not the mocking, sickly sweet one; it was a terrifying smile, one that sent shivers down the entire length of your body and could freeze a lake in July. "I thought you might say that."

And at that moment, a heavy sand-filled punching bag, which had been held up by a rope that had just been severed by Tempest's third arrow, dropped right on top of Shame and almost flattened her into a Nightmare Child pancake.

Tempest blew her choppy black bangs out of her carefully mascaraed eyes. Hey, just because she was a kick-butt archer with annoying perfect Mary Sue tendencies doesn't mean she didn't have to strive to look pretty. She took an hour each morning to do her hair and makeup. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a demonstration of how _not _to antagonize people."

Pain, Suffering, and Judgment, who had been earnestly debating the ancient arts of medieval torture methods versus modern-day exercise equipment, laughed. Everyone else just rolled their eyes. Shame sobbed big fat tears as she flailed her limbs and tried to get out from underneath the heavy punching bag.

"Showoff," remarked Dark to Death, referring to Tempest of course.

Then Tempest's cocky smile vanished when she heard the two gentle _fwips _and saw what had happened to her black wood arrows. They had both been split down the middle, each by a single, four-pointed throwing star. They all looked over to Loss, who, at the back of the training room, was polishing her other silver stars carefully with the dress of a small black doll.

"What?" the sixteen-year-old said innocently. "Someone had to shut her up."

At this, most of the others laughed or smiled. The exceptions were Tempest, whose face was creeping with red and who was muttering something about really hating wooden arrows, and a lone boy in the shadows, who was sneaking towards the door in an effort not to be seen. It didn't work, though — Solitude had something of an internal radar for those kinds of people, and glanced over to him.

Death also noticed him. "Unknown," he called over the sounds of Shame attacking Tempest. "You wanna show off those skills with that stick of yours? I need an opponent." Usually Tempest was his fighting partner, except that she was a bit held up at the moment. She and Shame were now really going at it, and Wrath was being forced to intercede even though he was quite frankly enjoying the fight.

The grey-hooded boy in the shadows froze. He gripped the "stick" — which was actually a long silver quarterstaff, a six-foot shaft with a weighted metal knob on each end — and shook his head mutely.

Dark came up beside Death. "Wow. Has he ever _not _rejected an offer to train?"

Death bit his tongue and remained impassive. He didn't find many things particularly amusing but one of them was knowing something that everyone else should but no one did. So he just shrugged.

"That's bloody unfair," Dark grumbled, folding his arms. "He doesn't show up for war games and no one says a word, but I don't show up for war games and Father revokes my dessert privileges?"

Death sighed. _Here we go again, _he thought.

"Solitude, too!" Dark threw his hands up in the air, groaning. "And Danger! She gets away with, like, everything, and Dad doesn't do anything! I don't see why Father even keeps them around!"

Death sighed and slapped his brother on the shoulder before sitting down on a rock to polish an imaginary spot on his scythe blade. Honestly, his brother really perplexed him sometimes. Seventeen, six foot three, strong enough to actually stand a chance in a fistfight with Wrath, stealthy and creepy as all Hades especially with his weird smile and habit of never taking off his sunglasses — and yet the epitome of a middle school nerd with the cutesy freckles and naïveté. Well, at least he had the good sense of when to be cool and calm and when to be blatantly, annoyingly ignorant. "Get a therapist, Dark. You need someone to talk to." He smirked wryly. "I'll even pay him for you."

"Really?"

"Anything to shut you up."

Dark frowned. "I really don't like you."

Death just nodded and smiled. This conversation was a near-daily thing, but it never got old.

Unknown was still standing there in the shadows. It was almost like he was waiting, asking silently, _Am I needed?_

Dark peered at his brother. "I can't believe it. It's been like ten years and I can't remember a word he's said to me."

Death stared at the black-clad boy beside him. "Ten years and you don't know if he can talk."

His brother smiled a purposefully stupid smile. "Oh, I know he can. I just forgot what he said."

Death had an impulse to knock Dark upside the head with the shaft of his black scythe. The kid could be such a bonehead sometimes. Solitude intruded before he could give in to the annoyance, which was one of the few emotions Death ever felt.

"He talks," the Eighth Nightmare Child said quietly. "Usually to himself, but he talks. Remember the dinner incident?"

Both boys stared at Solitude. They were staring at him mostly because until now, he had been playing his Nintendo DS in the shadowy corner alone and hadn't wanted to come out. Currently he was sucking the thumb of his right hand while clutching his long spear tightly in the other.

Dark shrugged. "Nah. Short term memory loss."

"Long term memory loss, you mean," Death added dryly, knowing what would come next.

"Don't forget short term," said Dark. His face was completely free of guile when Death peered at it and, since the kid was still wearing the stupid sunglasses, he couldn't tell what was in his eyes either.

Solitude looked over to where Unknown was still standing, running his thin white fingers down the shaft of his quarterstaff. As always, he wore the hood of his faded grey sweatshirt over his head, shadowing his face. Solitude, Dark, and Death saw a glimpse under that hood when the boy turned and glanced back at them for a second, but he turned away before any of them could focus on those elusive silver orbs.

"Unknown," Death called again, intent on getting some kind of reaction from his youngest sibling, but he caught Solitude's tired, almond-shaped green eyes and the light in them he saw told him to say no more.

"Leave him be," said Solitude quietly. "He just wants to be alone, that's all." Seriously, how did that kid talk with his thumb in his mouth like that?

Death sighed. "He's always alone. Sometimes, I think that Dad should have named _him _Solitude."

Solitude sniffed and rubbed his wet thumb on the flat side of his spearhead as if to polish it, but in the long run just smearing it more. "He would have done a horrible job at it. The job's hard, believe it or not."

Death said nothing, and Dark had long since gotten distracted and was playing with a shadow. Solitude was slowly drifting away from the other two boys. "What? No, no," he kept muttering.

"Voices in his head again?" inquired Dark, staring at the eccentric boy with the tired green eyes, the long brown hair, and the way-too-big clothes as he staggered away.

Death confirmed it with a nod. "On a completely unrelated topic, I wonder if Dad would mind having another kid and naming it Insanity? People fear insanity, right?"

Dark considered this. "Hmm. That might be interesting. Wonder if Danger would mind taking that name."

Death looked over to where Danger had all-too-eagerly joined Tempest's and Shame's fight. There was insanity in all three girls' eyes, especially Danger's.

Then he glanced over to where Unknown had once been standing. The boy was gone without a trace.

"Actually," amended Death, "I don't think we need a Nightmare Child to represent insanity."

"Why not?"

"We all have enough of it ourselves.

XXXXXXXXX

Their father called them to the throne room after training time was over. Everyone was there, even Solitude and Unknown. Today was special, they all knew. It was ten years to the day since Pitch claimed to have brought them out of the dark sand that held them captive, and called them his children. Ten years and ten months since he was cast down from the world above by those despicable Guardians. They all knew about the Guardians. Of course they did. Pitch had brought them up to know and hate them.

Pitch scanned them one by one as they stood before him. They didn't look like much, it was true. If mortals could see them, which they actually _could _(one of the many reasons Pitch tried to keep them inside the lair) they would see twelve moody-looking teens, none of them older than eighteen. But the weapons they held disproved that.

It had been a hard ten years. He had tried so hard to act as their loving father, and in return, they did what he told them to…mostly. He brought them up on his own, teaching them how to use weapons, ride Nightmares, manipulate dream sand, manipulate minds, shadow travel, plan sieges, fight unarmed, survive in the wild, escape prison cells, and all of those other life skills necessary to a young soldier. Because they weren't immortal. No, far from it. Even with Pitch's power inside of them, they were still very, so very _human _that it was almost worth considering not using them. But they were the perfect weapons. More powerful than any Nightmares he could ever create.

Yes, there had been some obstacles. Yes, it had been _extremely _awkward at times. After all, being a single immortal father of twelve adoptive mortal children was no easy task. He'd forced himself to read parenting books and research how to bring up kids. He'd had to renovate the entire lair and annex a kitchen, bathrooms, and a dining room — because after all, being an immortal came with its benefits, among which were lack of mortal bodily functions. And since the kids' original bodies were still mortal…well, it was not a pleasant job for the coping father.

He'd had to "get with the times" as the children grew older, because even though he tried to separate them from the mortal world as much as possible, they still managed to wiggle out there. Soon each child had an iPod, an iHome, a laptop, or all three in their rooms. And along with the kitchen, bathrooms, and dining room, Pitch had had to build a screening room for the kids to watch TV and a rec room for them to play video games and stuff in. They each had a phone (some, like Solitude, barely used them at all; and others, like Danger, broke and/or lost so many that Pitch had banned them from having any more) and spent many hours calling or texting their immortal friends — among which were the Grim Reaper, the four violent Wind Spirits, the Seven Deadly Sins, and some of the more shadowy, foreign immortals like Hades, Melinoe, Loki, Anubis, et cetera. (Pitch suspected that Dark was having secret meetings with Nyx, the Greek goddess of night, but this was never proven.)

And when they had first awoken, there had been some definite problems — Shame's incessant crying, Danger's hyperactivity, Wrath's temper problems, Suffering's paralyzed legs, et cetera — but over time, these things were (somewhat) fixed. With lots and lots of trial and error and frustration, they were now mostly manageable.

Shame still cried a lot, but they were mostly angry tears. No one ever made fun of her for crying, because they would either get a feel of her sharp silver dagger or find that some piece of humiliating information had been pulled from her vast store of blackmail material.

Death found his voice. He didn't use it more than he needed to, and when he did, it was often sharp and stinging yet irritatingly wise. A habit that Pitch had grown annoyed of, but he ignored it because it was just in the boy's nature and he couldn't change it.

Loss began to open up a bit more to people, but when she did, she also began honing her skills as a pickpocket and a thief. It was extremely annoying, but since her throwing stars were extremely sharp and she was extremely good with them, people usually left her alone. She was ridiculously paranoid and had booby-trapped her room and anything she didn't want other people touching.

Dark was probably one of the most obedient, but one of the messiest and most annoying. (Quite frankly, they were all annoying.) No one ever dared enter his room, because it was always completely dark in there and there were always things piled on the floor. How the owner of the room managed to maneuver through the mess in the pure dark was mystifying yet not much of a mystery. He had perfect night vision.

Danger had been ADHD in her human life and was even more now — way more, and to make it worse she was equipped with energy that literally never ran out — so she was given stimulants to help her. They worked only 10% of the time, but it was always worth a try. Pitch had been nervous to equip her with sharp blades, but she usually never hurt people with them. Emphasis on _usually._

Wrath's temper problems were mostly left alone. After all, it was what made him _him. _For the most part he was quick, efficient, and alarmingly demanding, like an army commander, even reaching OCD-like levels when faced with things like the arrangement of his weapons and how he cut his meat at dinner. Pitch did occasionally have to keep him from braining his siblings with battleaxes when petty arguments turned into brawls, but he was a good leader and definitely worth the trouble.

Pain had shown the most progress. For the first two years, she was a weak, mostly useless girl. Then, on her tenth birthday, she was suddenly gifted with invulnerability to physical pain. After that she threw herself at training with a newfound fire, and had grown to be a remarkably sexy young woman with considerable skill in swordsmanship. Okay, okay, maybe things had been _disgustingly _awkward with her as she was the oldest of the girls and the first to go through…_the changes, _but that was a minor thing.

Solitude stayed pretty much the same — thumb sucking and all.

After long weeks of therapy and practice, Suffering learned how to walk, and soon she was a master in the art of whip fighting. She didn't grow much, save the changes brought in puberty, and so as her siblings grew up she remained the smallest of all the Nightmare Children. The wounds on her face never healed, nor did her susceptibility to weakness. But she hated being teased and was quick to act in revenge, as they had had the misfortune to find out.

Judgment was still as judgmental as always of other people's clothes and appearances, even though he himself wore an oversized judge's robe and black loafers wherever he went. He had also taken an interest in the arts of human law and justice. In addition to these studious qualities, he liked war hammers. Why? No one knew, though some had remarked that his favorite hammer looked a bit like a judge's gavel.

Tempest still liked to sleep in. A lot. But she was very, _very_ powerful, showing control over anything in nature that could be used to destroy — wind, storms, fire, floods, earthquakes, et cetera. She had a temper of her own and, due to ten years of doing literally nothing but training, became a skilled fighter with her words, her weapons, and her fists. Lightning seemed to be her favorite out of all of her destructive spheres of control, because it could be as bipolar as she was.

Unknown still hardly ever spoke. For the first year, everyone had thought him to be a useless, helpless mute until the one time he spoke up hoarsely at the dinner table when everyone else was arguing over something that didn't really matter anyway. It was just three words — "This is boring" — but it had silenced the entire table. He hadn't shown much more progress than that, though he had shown preference to the bladeless quarterstaff as a weapon. While his adoptive siblings were fighting or training, one could often find him perched on the top of the bookshelves in the library, reading ancient scrolls about the history, construction, and using of time travel amulets, or something of that sort.

Yes, there had been some obstacles along the way, and the kids _still_ weren't perfect, but they would have to do. If Pitch could, he would have waited a few more years for them to grow up a little more — because even to him, the prospect of sending twelve teens to battle a group of five immortals was a bit disturbing — but he didn't think he could wait any longer. They were already lethal warriors. And if they grew any older, then they might reach that age when they stopped caring completely about themselves and what was going on now. Pain had already inquired several times as to exactly _who _Pitch had played with to get them, and she wasn't the last to ask either — it had taken a lot of fake sobbing and a quick little lie to get out of that one. With enough time, they might start getting more persistent in the questions of where exactly they came from, and if Pitch was _really_ their father…

He couldn't have that. No, it had to be now.

But maybe it wasn't the perfect time. Shame had been really moody lately — the girls all tended to be like that at one point or another — and Pitch didn't know if she would comply. And he still wasn't sure if Unknown was fit for fighting in any way. Should he send them?

Then he realized he was growing soft. Ten years with these kids was wearing him down. As annoying as they were, he had developed a fondness for them.

It had to be now, before it was too late.

"I have called you here," said Pitch finally after his accounting of his children was completed, "because today is the day when we will strike."

Danger, Wrath, Pain, and Judgment all looked at Pitch with eager lights in their eyes. Shame and Loss had confusion written on their faces. Death was contemplative, Dark's emotionless eyes caused the already-dim light to fade halfway to complete darkness, Solitude didn't seem to care, Suffering smiled slightly, and Tempest raised an eyebrow. Unknown just kept his head down and hood up as he scratched his ankle with the toes of the other foot. In short, they were not reacting in the way he had expected. If one is to lay siege upon somewhere, they should all be eager to do it!

"Today is the day," said Pitch, rising from his throne and hoping that a little dramatic speech would help wake them up, "when I shall send you out. You shall go to the Guardians, attack, and then kill them all. The ones that you cannot kill, bring them back…alive, if it is reasonable. This is what I have trained you for, my Nightmare Children, so make me proud."

Very little to no reaction from most of them. But then the small, lithe Danger stepped forward and said with a grin, "I will, Father."

Wrath followed his little sister's lead and hefted his huge battleaxe over his shoulder. "As will I. We won't let you down."

Pain inclined her perfect chin and smiled her perfect smile, though her flawless beauty was marred by the wicked glint in her blood-red eyes. "If Danger and Wrath are in, then so am I."

Most of the other Nightmare Children just nodded and/or readied weapons, which basically conveyed the same message. Unknown didn't move, which was only typical and to be ignored once again. Solitude sighed in melodramatic exasperation.

"Is there something wrong, Solitude?" inquired Pitch sardonically.

Solitude hesitated. "I just — with all these other people? I thought we were going to do this, like, I don't know, one person for each Guardian?"

Everyone groaned, rolled their eyes, facepalmed, or all of the above. Danger snickered something about there only being five Guardians and not twelve.

"Not this _again,"_ grumbled Pitch. "Yes. With all these 'other people', whether you like it or not."

This finished and done with, it was time to wrap things up. "Then be off," commanded the Nightmare King. He called out twelve Nightmares, which were instantly attracted to the Nightmare Child it had been assigned to. Nightmare riding had been part of their training after all, except for Tempest seeing as she could control the wind and didn't really need to ride Nightmares. Hence, she ignored her horse and summoned a gust of wind, which agitated the other eleven Nightmares. Agitated Nightmares were the best kind, Pitch mused to himself. Maybe Tempest's annoying love of wind would help them this time.

"Now go," he ordered. "Take your Nightmares, and deal my revenge!"

A bit melodramatic, he thought, but these kids loved sinister melodrama. And it seemed to work anyway. The teens mounted their Nightmares, and in a swirl of black sand, they were gone.

Pitch knew that he shouldn't. He knew it was undignified for the Nightmare King, but he couldn't help it. An evil chuckle bubbled its way up his throat and burst out, growing in volume and intensity until it turned into a full-fledged evil laugh that echoed around the cavern, sending all remaining Nightmares and other animals scurrying for cover. They could tell that something very, very bad was about to happen.

And they were right.

XXXXXXXXX

**Oh look, no puns.**

**Unless you guys can find some that I didn't, or can make some up. (I _am _looking at you Chocykitty. Do not disappoint me.)**

**Originally this chapter was longer but I decided to cut the last scenes and put them in the next one, because that one was really short.**

**Bleh. Review or whatever.**


	3. Enemy

**QUICKIE UPDATE BEFORE I HAVE TO GO PRACTICE FOR MY TAE KWON DO TESTING HERE YA GO BYE**

**miami-mjk & ShadowWolf99: /:U  
FlightFeathers: I can't write dark and creepy, not with something like this I guess…like I try. But even with Five Quarts on FictionPress, a story about an undertaker, I couldn't make it dark without making jokes.  
chocykitty: Yesterday I ate a plate of nachos.**

**.**

Danger wanted to be the first to go. Of course. Logic stated that the warlike, noble-appearing Wrath should be the one to lead the attack. Possibly Tempest, if they wanted the fight to break out with either a perfectly placed arrow to Jack Frost's heart or a big dramatic speech highlighting the futility of resistance. But as they were arguing on their strategy of attack on their way to the North Pole, Dark just had to be a smart aleck and point out, "Um, guys, but if we're going to attack Guardians, they all have to be _in one place, _right?"

This shut them all up.

Death cleared his throat. "I believe," he said flatly, "that I am one of the only ones here who has even considered that maybe picking off the Guardians individually would be better than waiting for them to gather in their stronghold."

Loss smirked. "Problem," she piped up. "You weren't the only one. I'm a strategist, you know? I've been thinking about this for years! In _theory,_ a brilliant plan. But how're we going to find them if they're all scattered across the globe?"

Death frowned, then nodded. He knew better than to cross his little sister. The Nightmare Children did not discriminate by age, only skill level, courage, strength, and probability of being retaliated against by the person in question. Loss had been known to hide water balloons filled with salsa all over the rooms of people who claimed the television remote first.

"So no, we have to get them all together," she concluded.

"Well, how?" asked Wrath.

"I spent more time than you think in Father's library," Solitude piped up. "I was reading a book on some of the lesser-known facts about the Guardians, and it said that they call their members together with a special kind of aurora borealis, sent out by a certain lever that Nicholas St. North pushes. I say we send someone in anonymously and they pull that lever, bringing all of the Guardians into one place."

His siblings stared at him. "Wow, Sol," remarked Shame, "I think that's the most you've ever said at once." At which Solitude's olive cheeks turned a shade of red normally associated with fire trucks, to which Shame grinned as she felt his embarrassment. She and Solitude had a running feud going, though why no one really knew.

"I volunteer!" shouted Danger a bit too zealously. "Like, to be the one to go in," she amended awkwardly, to which Shame grinned again.

"Danger? Infiltrating the Guardian headquarters? By herself?" said Judgment, raising an eyebrow. "I don't like where this is going."

"Neither do I," said Tempest, standing up from her place on the back of Wrath's Nightmare. She had been riding with him to save her energy, but now that they were so close to the Pole she dismounted and let the wind catch her. "I'll go; I've studied the layout of the Pole, and I know how to stay unseen. I'll just — "

"No," said a voice from the back of the group, quite unexpectedly. "I'll go."

They all froze, reined in their still-in-the-air Nightmares, and swerved around to focus on the origins of the voice. Those origins in question happened to be a small fourteen-year-old with a silver quarterstaff. He kept his hood up to hide his face, but they all saw him swallow and take a deep breath before continuing.

"I mean," he fiddled with his Nightmare's reins anxiously, then coughed, "w…with all due respect, Tempest, but…in — invisibility, those things unseen…that's not your job."

There was a long silence, during which they all stared at him in shock, confusion, amazement, disgust, or all of the above, until Shame broke it by remarking, "Wow, Unknown, I think that's the most you've ever said at once." Solitude, the other recipient of this barb, scowled.

But there was no visible reaction from the hooded albino. He only shrugged his shoulders and continued, obviously trying not to stutter, "There are dozens — no, _hundreds _of magical traps and security systems surrounding the Pole."

"So what you're saying is…?" prompted Pain, more than a bit sarcastic.

"If…if anyone can bypass them, it's me."

"Oh really?" Wrath drawled, smirking. "_You, _the only one able to get into the most secure magical stronghold on this planet?"

The youngest Nightmare Child faltered, then nodded. "The Pole's systems are meant to keep out magical beings, not mortals. The less magic a spirit has, the less of a chance that they'll detect them. So…if you're going to look around and ask who's the least magical person here…well, it's not really that hard."

Each of his siblings, to some extent, felt that he was scared. Judgment suspected it was because Unknown was lying, though you could never really tell with this freak. But it made sense, so what exactly could he be lying about?

"I don't see any problem with that," Dark was the first to speak. "It's just once you're in the Pole that it'd be hard to go unnoticed."

"No, that'd be the easy part," Loss cut in. "If you enter by the main control panel, there's a risk of a few sentries — or even Nicholas St. North seeing you from his private workshop — but other than that, no one else should really be around."

"So, can — " Unknown tried to speak up, but she kept going as if he hadn't said anything at all.

"It's after that what I'm mostly worried about. I've no idea where the security controls are and if you just let yourself in, is it going to let us in after you?"

Solitude nodded before Unknown even had a chance to think about the answer. "I'd think so. I read about this once. There's usually a magical catalyst somewhere, and I'm guessing it'd be somewhere by the aurora controls."

"But if it's a magical catalyst, then wouldn't it take someone with magic to deactivate it?" asked Shame.

The green-eyed boy shook his head. "No, I don't think so. The magic in that place is so strong, even a mortal could reach out and grab some of it. Kind of like…did anyone else read the fairy text about that one mortal boy, the Irish kid…"

"Artemis Fowl?" Suffering offered, and Solitude nodded.

"Yeah. That guy. He acquired and used magic through the time stream or something like that because the magic was so loose. It's kind of the same deal here, I think, especially if you've already got the negative energy of the Nightmares."

"So — " Unknown tried to speak up again, but this time, it was Tempest who cut him off.

"If you think you can do it, go right on ahead," she shrugged.

This aroused some protests among the ranks of the Nightmare Children, the loudest of which was Danger's before Death slapped her out of pure annoyance. But oh, that did feel good. He didn't like a lot of things, but slapping people was among them. It gave him such a sense of satisfaction.

"Tempest, what the blazes are you _thinking?" _Wrath hissed into Tempest's ear. "Sending Unknown to — "

"No, I trust him," she said, but whether it was directed to Wrath or Unknown is a mystery. "After all, if he thinks he's ready to prove himself, I say we let him. Not like we have a better option here."

Wrath was literally fuming. Yes, quite literally, in fact — faint wisps of black smoke were spiraling from his crest of carefully gelled hair.

"Ignore him," Tempest said, referring to Wrath of course. Unknown's mouth twitched a bit on the side — a smile? — but he said nothing.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Tempest snapped. "Go!"

"Okay," the Twelfth Nightmare Child said, and, quite simply, vanished. Vanished into thin air, just like that — Nightmare, quarterstaff, hood, and all.

Silence.

"That's new," Dark commented.

"It does explain how he always won Hide-and-Go-Seek as kids," Judgment shrugged.

After a silence Wrath restated his previous question, except in much greater volume. "Tempest, _what the bloody blazes are you thinking?"_

She turned to him, an amused look on her face. "I'm thinking that you all gave _me_ a chance," she replied. "And I just now realized that he's never received one until today."

Then Tempest stopped and considered her words.

"Those nostalgic thoughts, and also that if he gets caught, he'll be too scared to say a word."

XXXXXXXXX

**Fifteen minutes later…**

Eleven teens sat huddled on the cliff overlooking the North Pole, just a few feet outside of North's first outer boundary. Tempest was able to divert most of the wind and they were wearing special coats that helped them stay warm, but it was still _so infernally cold._

They were all still and silent as they waited for Unknown to return. After exactly fifteen minutes — Solitude had been counting the seconds — Danger yelled irritably:

_"When is that hooded moron going to be done already?!"_

Nine Nightmare Children had to keep Wrath from disemboweling Danger on the spot.

XXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, Jack Frost had just instituted a school-wide snowball fight.

He had been flying casually through Burgess when he had seen a young man of about twenty years old walking out of a middle school with a blond-haired girl of thirteen. He could hear them complaining to each other about tests and school and jobs as they went to the car, a battered blue van that very obviously belonged to the young man. Ugh. Tests, school, and jobs. Since when had they become so boring?

Things stopped getting boring when a snowball smacked the young man in the back of the head.

"Hey," grinned twenty-year-old Jamie, turning around and seeing the winter spirit.

"You gotta stay on your toes, kid!" called Jack, even though, since he was eternally fifteen, Jamie was now older than him by five years. Though if you were speaking literally, then Jamie still had a long way to go. So, by this logic, Jack was right in calling Jamie "kid" and I have proven absolutely nothing in fifty-one words.

"Jack Frost," sighed teenage Sophie. "I will _never_ get over his hotness."

"Wait, what?" spluttered Jack indignantly, skidding to a stop, if one can _skid _while flying on the wind. _"HOTNESS?! _I am not HOT, for your information. Cool, yes, maybe, and awesome, but not _HOT — _whoa!"

Sophie used this opportunity to scoop up a snowball from a nearby snowdrift. She had a surprisingly strong arm, but her aim needed work, evidenced when the snowball sailed right past Jack's head and hit a curly-haired eighth grader who was just getting into her parents' brand new car. Sophie gasped when the girl, obviously one of the "rich kids" _and_ one of the "popular kids" — since the two usually went hand in hand — turned around and glared at her.

"HEY!" the girl called in a high-pitched, prissy voice. "What do you think you're doing? I could have gotten _hurt!_ What kind of bratty — "

Thankfully the girl's irritatingly high voice was cut off by one of Jack's snowballs, which hit her right in the face. The girl staggered back.

"AIIIIIIEEE!" she screamed. "You hit me!" Then the blue magic of Jack's snow began to work its will and the girl stopped scrabbling at her face. She actually smiled. "Hey. That was…fun!"

A tough-looking kid in a leather jacket picked up a handful of snow and hurled it straight at his buddy, who was walking away with his shoulders hunched moodily. The snow hit the guy and Jack heard the satisfying smack of snow on hot human flesh, and following in quick succession the even more satisfying yelp of a surprised young teen.

"FREE FOR ALL!" the teen yelled and scooped up his own snowball, aiming and hurling it back at his friend. He ducked, but got hit again by one of Jack's. The blue magic oozed from the snow and suddenly the light of fun that had been missing from these young teenagers' eyes for years came back. Soon they were all romping around and ducking the frozen ammo like they were eight years old again. Even some of the teachers and a bus driver joined.

Jack smiled. It was the things like this that really brought joy to him; when he brought joy to others. It made him feel like all his three hundred years of existence wasn't wasted.

Long story short, an all-school snowball war was soon taking effect. Due to the school's status as a middle school, not all of the kids saw Jack. The ones that did didn't really say anything — they just had just another target to hit.

Jack was the only person — spirit, whatever — who saw the shimmering auroras fluttering across the sky. The calling auroras were a special type of aurora borealis, different from the regular, natural ones because they were enchanted so that only the Guardians could see them. It was a principle that North had tried to teach the easily distracted Jack but to no avail, seeing as it involved several complicated spells that, quite frankly, the winter spirit had no patience for. But Jack was interested now. Was Pitch back? Were the lights going out? Did North get stuck in another doorway? The possibilities were endless.

Jack bid farewell to Jamie, Sophie, and the other believers, then leapt into the sky and zipped to the North Pole. He could literally bend time as he flew, shortening the journey by far. He slowed his path as he neared the Pole, though, knowing about the countless magical security measures that he had only been able to bypass a few times.

There was a little loophole by the guest room in which he occasionally took up residence, but he held this tiny glitch in the system as nonexistent to anyone except. He entered by way of this loophole and through the unlocked window, and flew into the Globe Room to find three very confused immortals. Sandy had not yet arrived.

"I don't know what's happening," North was explaining to Bunnymund and Toothiana. "It vas like — oh! Hello, Jack."

"What's going on?" asked the boy, leaning against his staff and surveying the other Guardians. Tooth looked nervous, Bunny was grim and warming his feet by the fire, and North did not look like he was stuck in a doorway. So far, so good. So what could be wrong?

"That's the problem, mate," replied Bunny with a frown that seemed a bit more intense than usual.

"We don't _know,_" said Tooth, lacing her fingers together as her eyes darted anxiously around. "None of us do."

"How come?" asked Jack. Tooth was never this agitated, even when she was overworked. Something really bad must be happening.

"It was very strange," said North, waving the saber in his left hand and a candy cane in his right. One of the elves slyly leapt up, nabbed the candy cane, and made off with it without North even noticing. "I was just in workshop, getting ready for next Christmas — "

"It's January, North. Christmas was just over."

"Still! Christmas needs much preparing. Anyway — oh, hello Sandy — I was just in private workshop when I heard calling auroras being sent off. None of Yetis heard or saw anything, only that handle mysteriously turned on its own!"

Jack raised one dark eyebrow quizzically — even after eleven long years of being around the kid, no one got the white hair/dark brows thing — and glanced up at the skylight through which the moon would shine, or should have been shining. Sandy, who had arrived during North's explanation, tapped Jack's leg and formed a dreamsand picture of a crescent moon above his head. "I don't know, Sandy," Jack admitted. "Maybe Manny called us together, but if he did, why isn't he up there?"

He wasn't. The skies were pitch black, obscured by a thick layer of dark clouds. They couldn't even see the stars.

_Pitch Black…_

"Guys," said Jack warily as the mental puzzle pieces continued to sort themselves out, "there's no moon."

The other four stared at him, then up at the skylight. It occurred to them a second afterwards — which was a second too late. North only had time to hiss, "Pitch!" before the night sky cracked with electricity and illuminated the silhouettes of twelve figures — one flying on the wind, the other eleven riding on black horses.

"No," said the flying figure as she descended through the skylight and alighted on the top of the Globe, "not _Pitch_ Black." She was followed by her eleven comrades on the Nightmares, who landed their steeds on the ledges and outcroppings around the Globe Room.

The five Guardians, gripping their respective weapons, stared at the twelve…_children_. Really, that was what they were. Tall and fit they might have been, but none of them were much over eighteen. They all wore black armor and all held deadly looking weapons, which varied from throwing knives to curved sabers to axes. They even saw a boy holding a black scythe, like the Grim Reaper's.

None of them looked alike in any way. Even their skin colors varied, most of them being a pale shade of olive or greyish white but one of them, a long-haired girl, had skin the color of dark chocolate and another, the tallest girl, had skin like cinnamon. (Of course, you know these girls to be Danger and Pain because you have read the prologue, but the Guardians hadn't.) They all had different colored eyes — none of which looked either normal or friendly — and had hair varying different shades of black, dark brown, and grey.

None of them looked similar at all, but it was apparent that they all shared one cause and served the same man.

The girl perched on the Globe, who was only about fifteen years of age, held an unloaded silver and black bow in her hands that seemed to crackle with live electricity. This same lightning reflected in her manic blue eyes and she seemed to even have control of the wind as it ruffled her messy black hair. Her lips were curled in a smirk, like she was thinking of all of the possible ways that she could knock out the witnesses and get away with something bad.

"Who are you?" demanded North, gripping his two swords.

That smirk just grew colder. "You might know me as the darker side of Mother Nature," she said. "I am Tempest Black." (Of course it was Tempest, duh. No one else on planet Earth loved melodrama as much as she did. Except for maybe her dad.)

"Black," repeated Bunny warily, frowning. Then the penny dropped. "You're _Pitch's_ kid?"

"We all are," replied Tempest. "Shame, Death, Loss, Dark, Danger." She gestured to the siblings on her left. "Wrath, Pain, Solitude, Suffering, Judgment, and Unknown." She gestured to the siblings on her right. "We are the Nightmare Children."

Jack snorted. "And I'm guessing you don't mean that you were twelve real pains in the butt for your mom?" he asked, trying to sound innocent. Sandy cracked a smile, and Tooth accidentally let out a bark of laughter before nervously covering her mouth.

Obviously, this did not strike Tempest and her eleven oddly-named siblings as funny. Lightning streaked across the sky above, but the room was darkening as a kid with sunglasses tightened his grip on his short black sword. "We do not find your sarcasm funny, _Jack Frost_," snapped Tempest.

Jack's ever-present grin shrank a few molars and he huffed in annoyance. "Fine," he grumbled. "I was just trying to lighten the mood, jeez…"

"Just tell us why you've come!" Bunny demanded, drawing his boomerangs back into the throwing position.

"Oh, so anxious, Pooka," Tempest crooned mockingly with a smile as lovely as a rose but colder than ice. "Can't wait for your death, can you?"

The Guardians' eyes widened and her hungry, wolfish smile grew maliciously. "Oh yes, we have come to kill you, Guardians, for driving the Nightmare King from his rightful place on this earth! We will throw you into oblivion, as you tried to do to our father!"

Lightning cracked outside and a deafening clap of thunder boomed throughout the Pole. Winds whipped up outside and snow flashed past the windows in a blizzard that seemed to lock them in. The sudden snowstorm blew up so fast — and so out of control that even Jack couldn't slow it on the spur of the moment — that the Guardians were sure that Tempest was responsible. She leered down at them like she wouldn't mind frying them all with a thunderbolt, then she caught the eye of one of her siblings and nodded.

At the same time North caught the eye of one of the Yetis, who was crouched behind a pillar and holding a small crossbow loaded with mild tranquilizer darts, and gestured nearly imperceptibly. Tempest's back was to the Yeti marksman, so she didn't see him slowly raising the bow until he released the string and let the dart loose.

The crack of the crossbow echoed around the silent workshop and before her mind even fully comprehended what her ears were hearing, she leapt instinctively into the air and spun around to face the Yeti assassin while still propelled aloft. Her hand went up to the quiver on her back, whipped out a black arrow, loaded the bow, drew back on the string, and released the arrow, which was all before her feet landed back on the Globe. It was a feat only possible with wind manipulation.

The arrow streaked through the air, its tip glowing white-hot and small threads of blue electricity racing up the gunmetal-black shaft. That was all the Guardians saw of the arrow before it slammed through the Yeti's thick mass of fur and into his stomach, sinking halfway up the shaft. The gentle yet fierce giant fell to his knees, his eyes wide.

"Phil!" gasped North. "NO!" He could feel an ancient rage building up inside him, a rage he hadn't felt for centuries. Furious almost to the point of insanity, the former bandit glared up at Tempest, who was cursing her miss. "THIS MEANS WAR, NIGHTMARE GIRL!" he bellowed.

Maybe she hadn't gotten the thing in the heart, but these results were substantial. Upon seeing the damage that her possibly lethal shot had done to the usually calm Nicholas St. North, the archeress smiled contemptuously as the lightning flickered in her eyes. "Then so be it."

That was when the bolt of ice and lightning slammed into her, followed by a figure in a blue hoodie.

.

**OH CLIFFHANGERS OH CLIFFHANGERS**

**and puns. **


	4. Fight

**FlightFeathers: *pats arm sympathetically* it's okay. I hate Tempest too. Such a *shudders* Mary Sue. **

**Really quick, I'll just sneak in and give Mystichawk the credit she deserves:**

**I wrote maybe about 20% of this chapter, 25% if I'm generous. The rest is all hers, so give her the credit. I gave her a loose outline, an overview of a thousand words that I thought would stand great as a chapter of its own, and she gave me back this masterpiece. This is true for everything up to chapter 6, when character and plot development demanded for me to rewrite before sending them to her. Starting there the chapters are maybe half mine and half hers. This applies up to chapter 15, when we had to separate.**

**Then it's all me, and you guys should brace yourselves.**

_._

When Jack heard the_swoosh _of the arrow and the heavy_thump_ of its impact as it drove into Phil's flesh, he found that he couldn't move.

He just stared in horror as the yeti that had become his friend staggered back against the wall and fall to his knees. He watched, paralyzed, as the other Guardians rushed to the gentle giant's side, and he watched as the girl Tempest gloated.

He was completely numb. No. Not _Phil! _It was impossible. This was just a bad dream. Nothing more than Pitch trying to get him. Phil couldn't have just gotten shot like that! The arrow had come without any warning and he hadn't even had time to scream! As he stared almost incomprehensibly at the blood gushing out from the wound, Jack felt a strong urge to cry.

Ever since Jack received his new status as an official Guardian, he had been trying to get on good terms with the huge Yeti. Yetis, despite their intimidating size and powerful muscles under all that fur, are naturally forgiving and gentle creatures. And despite Jack's many attempts to break to break into the workshop, all the elves he'd frozen, and all the trouble he'd made, Phil had accepted his sincere apology and had even given him a few presents to make up for kicking him out so many times.

He had given Jack a new hoodie, sewn from the finest blue material, and even a little white hat, which Jack wore whenever he was around Phil. The Yeti had even taken out the time to teach Jack some of his carving skills and over the next few months Jack began to feel more welcome at the Pole. Like the relationship between Bunny and Jack, Phil and Jack grew fond of each other and though teasing and pranking were common, no one ever got hurt. It was just a game, and Jack had never felt more cared for.

Now all of that had been ripped away by one single arrow.

_He's not going to die! _Jack screamed to himself. _He won't die!_

Rage built up inside of him and he exploded from the floor with a shower of ice, making a beeline straight towards Tempest. With a clench of his fist he sent a powerful wind whipping around her and shards of frost and ice straight at her face. His energy, released for the first time in its full force since the battle with Pitch, made an amazing sight as it collided with the girl riding the black winds.

Tempest had not seen the attack coming until it was too late. Her face took on the impact of a dozen stinging shards of ice and she screamed, instinctively sending a wall of dark wind flying in the direction the ice came from. She was blinded and as she tried to get control of her winds, a body slammed into her and sent her flying off her wind-steed.

She fell to the ground kicking and gasping, clawing at her face and trying to regain control over her powers. The ice dug into her skin and partly out of pain, partly out of rage she screamed, "WE WILL FINISH YOU! BROTHERS, SISTERS, ATTACK!"

XXXXXXXXX

The Nightmare Children needed no more urging. When they saw their sister fall and heard her scream the command they each leapt into action, charging the forces that had defeated their father.

Wrath and Dark took on North; Wrath with his battle-ax and shield and Dark with his writhing sword of shadows. They slashed and hacked, trying to keep North with the group. He couldn't swing those massive swords if he was backed up near his fellow Guardians, for fear of accidentally hitting one of them. Fortunately, or so they thought, the man seemed to only be fighting on the defensive. He had few chances to counterattack as it was, but when he did, he seemed to be doing so simply to injure and not to kill.

They didn't know why, but anyway it gave them an advantage. And so, comforted by the lack of lethal attacks, they threw themselves at him with a fury.

Danger, with her twin throwing knives, began fighting Bunnymund. She threw her knives with honed accuracy but Bunny leaped out of the way just in time, sending a boomerang flashing towards her head. She ducked and jeered, "Ha ha! Too slow!" She pulled up on the reins of her Nightmare and stood up in the saddle, making immature faces. "Too slow, too slow!"

Enraged, Bunny threw another boomerang, yelling, "You'll pay for that, sheila!"

"That's not my name, you silly Bunny!" Danger taunted, reminding Bunny for a second of Sophie when she said his name. He hadn't seen the little anklebiter for almost a year now…well, Easter was just around the corner. Then he shook his head. _Focus, Aster! There's a crazed sheila going after your neck! _He looked up, just as said "crazed sheila" tapped her heels against the sides of her horse and made it leap for Bunny. She had drawn her knives again and Bunny assumed that, just like his boomerangs, they reappeared when thrown. Either that or she was just that fast. Her eyes were alight like bright purple coals and her mouth was stretched into an insane, almost hideous smile.

"I AM DANGER!" she yelled melodramatically. "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

_Well, now we know Pitch's influence on kids, _Bunny mused grimly to himself as he leaped up. _Grand-standers, the both of ya. _He sent two boomerangs flying in opposite directions. They curved around and were about to slice right through the horse until the girl, "Danger", yanked on the reins and made the horse leap up again. She managed to turn the jump into something of a loop-de-loop in mid-air as the boomerangs sailed uselessly past her.

"Well played, sheila," commented Bunny.

Danger, who was still standing in the stirrups, flashed another striking, yet horribly taunting, grin. "Silly rabbit!" she sang in a mocking voice, but Bunny could hear the undertone of insanity in it and shuddered. "Weapons are for KIDS!" And she let loose her knives once more.

XXXXXXXXX

On the other side of the room, Tooth was using a smaller sword, which she had borrowed from a Yeti, to charge Pain, who was armed with two curved sabers.

"AAAAAAAAARRRRGH!" Tooth screamed, slashing and hacking with all her might. "You MONSTERS!"

_"__We're _the monsters?" Pain inquired calmly, tugging the reins of her Nightmare to almost leisurely evade the furious Tooth Fairy. Then, in one smooth, lithe movement, she leapt off, landed on the ground, and drew her sabers from sheaths on her back. The slim red blades glowed in the angry, flashing light from above as Tempest and Jack began to go at each other's throats. "_You're_ the ones who cast our father into oblivion, just because he wanted to be believed in." An evil smirk grew on her face as an idea sparked in her dark mind. "I bet you never even went back to try to search for him."

"He was evil!" Tooth yelled, swinging lividly with her sword. Pain ducked and parried with one of her own blades. "He tried to kill us!"

"And you didn't try to do the same to him?" Pain asked contemptuously as Tooth came for her again and again. "You sent him to his doom, Guardian. Just like you did to your poor mother and father."

Tooth froze and stumbled mid-strike, staring in horror at the smiling Nightmare Girl. _Her parents? _How could she possibly know about her parents?

"Oh yes. I can see your pain," Pain said smoothly, slowly circling the only female Guardian, letting her sabers drag along the floor and allowing them to cut long, jagged slashes in the intricate rugs and the wooden floor underneath. A bright glint of malicious glee shone in her crimson eyes. "Your parents sacrificed themselves, but you still feel guilty about it, don't you?"

Tooth blinked and suddenly she was in control of herself again. "Stop it!" she snarled. "You don't know anything about me!"

"'Course I do, you're the Tooth Fairy!" said Pain with a malicious smile. "Mistress of little fairies who come in the night." She sounded so much like Pitch that Tooth actually shuddered. Then Pain stopped her pace and fixed Toothiana with a cold stare. "And the keeper of so much pain that it makes you just want to scream."

Tooth faltered. "I — " she choked, trying to sound brave. The words jumbled in her mind as a cold hand started to squeeze her heart. "I'm not full of pain! I love my job and I love my life!"

"Yes, but who made it possible for you to _have _that life?" Pain questioned rhetorically. "Your parents did, that's who! They chose to die — they sacrificed themselves so that you could live and how do you repay them? You _forgot_ about them! You spent so many years working with your precious Guardians that you forgot — "

"STOP IT!" Tooth screamed, suddenly lunging forward and swinging her sword in a burst of reckless wrath. But of course, Pain had grown up with a very reckless Wrath, so she knew how to react. She sidestepped the swing almost leisurely. "Stop it! You don't know! _You aren't me!"_

"No," Pain admitted, "but I can see right through that box you put your pain in." She began circling again, her movements lithe and silent as a cat's. "You shut all the hurt you've experienced, especially that of losing your family, into a cage and just let it fester and boil into a mass of writhing pain and self-hatred."

"I didn't!" Tooth spat, trying to fight the Nightmare Child who just kept walking back and ducking and deflecting as if she had all the time in the world.

"Why is it, do you think?" the eighteen-year-old girl asked her suddenly, dropping the outstretched sabers and eyeing the fairy with slight puzzlement.

Tooth faltered again but regained her footing. "Why is what?" she inquired warily.

"Why can't you even seem to save the people you care about?" Pain replied, her face changing instantly into the cold smirk of a predator who knows where the prey is hiding. "First your parents, then every child who can't remember the joy, even that Yeti — all worth so much to you. Oh, don't look so shocked," she said, grinning even wider now. "I _saw _the horrified look on your face. I knew what you were thinking: _everyone keeps dying around me and I can't seem to stop it!" _she mocked, her voice shooting up to a falsetto that, if it went any higher, could break glass. "You can't stop it, Toothiana. No one can stop it. It just keeps happening, time after time after time again and no matter what you do, immortality or no, death _will _have the last word."

"No! I didn't — "

"Which makes me wonder," Pain continued, cutting her off, "who'll be next? The rabbit? North? That accursed dreammaker? Your precious _winter spirit?_ Oh, they'll all die, and you'll be the last one left standing. And then you'll break down and cry because you know that you could have stopped it."

Tooth tried to shut out the words. They weren't true! They weren't —

"Better yet, you probably wish they could come back!" Pain added. She was in her element now. Pain. This fairy was a virtual buffet of it! A few more words and the fairy would fold. "But they can't. You wish that you could take their place, but you can't. You'll be all alone and full of nothing but pain."

The swordswoman paused and adopted the kind, yet cold and patronizing voice that Pitch had used before his defeat. "You already have _so much pain, _Toothiana. Any more and I might burst from all the energy."

That accursedly pleasant voice might as well have been nails on a chalkboard.

"It really is quite _delicious."_

Tooth tried to fight the words, but they were overpowering. Being reminded of her long-lost parents after so many years…it crushed the fight out of her and forced her to drop the sword. It clanged against the wooden floor, releasing a hollow echo that no one heard amidst the cries and rings of battle.

This was the move Pain had been looking for. She lunged for the fairy with her sabers outstretched and ready for the kill. Tooth saw the blades. She heard Pain's cry of victory and she knew she was about to die, killed by the hand of a Nightmare Child. Just like Phil.

_Phil!_

_Her parents!_

In one instant Tooth felt all her memories of her mother and father flooding back. She hadn't forgotten them! They were still with her, in her heart! _She _hadn't been responsible for Phil's death! That demon-girl in the whirlwind had been, and she now had a chance to fight her sister!

In a whirl of feathers, Tooth reached down, scooped up the sword and parried the saber that would have otherwise cleaved her in half. "You don't know me!" she screamed, thrusting her sword at her opponent and landing a small incision under her ribs. Pain yelped in surprise — not pain of course; to that she was invulnerable — and stumbled back.

"I _do _feel pain," Tooth yelled, "but I _don't _blame myself! Your stupid mind-games don't work on me ANYMORE!"

She felt rejuvenated. She felt alive again. These words were just _words! _They weren't true! Yes, her parents had sacrificed themselves for her and yes she had wished she could have them back, but she knew _she _wasn't responsible!

Toothiana slashed and hacked, jumping into the duel with renewed vigor. Pain was momentarily shocked as she scrambled for cover, then a wide smile crossed her face and she too began to fight more viciously. Well, she had been waiting for a to-the-death duel her whole life, hadn't she? Her father had strictly forbidden it…until today.

XXXXXXXXX

While Tooth's little drama-sitcom moment was playing out down on the ground, Sandy found himself up on the far side of the room high above the others, facing Suffering. Sandy stood on his dreamsand cloud and stared at the girl riding the black sand-horse across from him. A curtain of stringy grey hair covered her face and she appeared to be unarmed, except for the uniform black armor that all of the Nightmare Children wore. Sandy was a little uneasy about fighting someone without a way to defend herself, and desperately he started signing to indicate that they didn't need to fight. Sure, he wasn't the best at diplomacy seeing as he could not speak, but it was worth a try.

"Fight," the girl said. Her voice was slightly raspy, and even though it should have been drowned out by the screams and yells and _zings _of blades on blades below, Sandy could hear her perfectly.

He made an image of a battle-ax, but the girl just let out a hissing rasp that might have been laughter. "Fight!" she repeated, louder this time.

Eyes wide, Sandy shook his head, then made the circle with the slash through it — _no — _and the weapons sign.

The girl cackled again and before Sandy could duck, a thick coil of black sand wrapped around his arm and started eating eagerly away at him. Sandy scowled and yanked his arm sharply to the side, breaking the nightmare sand's hold on him. The broken bond writhed and squirmed, trying to assert itself and take over the Sandman's body, but he was too strong for that. The black sand dissipated and Sandy cracked his neck, forming his own twin whips in his clenched fists.

_Let's go._

Without warning, the girl snapped her whip and Sandy had to duck quickly to avoid being slashed in two. _She's quick, _he thought. Then she lashed out again and he replied in kind, sending his whip towards her stomach. Her Nightmare pranced out of the way at her command, and she let her whip fly towards his head. Sandy ducked and bobbed, weaving in and out of range as the black and gold lashes twirled and spun in the intricate dance of life and death.

The girl's Nightmare skipped away and Sandy knew he would have to fly in closer. That was the trouble with whips; you couldn't use them in confined spaces. He would have to back her up against the ceiling or the wall to keep her from getting the better of him, then he could throw some dreamsand at her and knock her out, catching her before she hit the ground. No pain, no blood, no death. Easy.

That's what he thought, at least.

Suffering was, in all honesty, a whip _master, _and she showed it, too. She knew that if he backed her up he would cut off all options of escape, so she decided to use that tactic against him. She attacked with a ferocity that Sandy could only marvel at as he ducked and spun, dodging the whip's lash and inadvertently being driven further and further back. He tried to attack, but he couldn't help but pull his blows at the last second, not wanting to hurt a child. She was a dark, creepy, teenage child who wouldn't show her face and who was the daughter of Pitch, but she was still a child.

And the Guardians didn't hurt children.

Sandy ducked another lash and tried to convey a message to the girl. The images of a girl throwing down her weapons, a no sign with a fist in the middle, the Guardians' G symbol, and again the no sign and the fist. Drop your weapons and come quietly, and we won't hurt you.

The girl let out a screeching, almost hysterical laugh. "FIGHT!" she screamed, making his ears ring. "FIGHT OR DIE!"

_Well, I tried, _sighed Sandy bleakly, drawing back his arm and letting fly another lash.

XXXXXXXXX

The rest of the Nightmare Children — Shame, Death, Loss, Solitude, Judgment, and Unknown — were fighting off the Yetis, the Mini Fairies, and the elves (who had gotten a hold of some paintball guns). Judgment, who was pretty clumsy for a guy who could swing a five-pound hammer for hours, lost his breastplate and subsequently got pegged by three paintballs right in the stomach and was sent flying backwards out of shock. Luckily, his brother Death — who seemed to be the center of the fight and was battling three Yetis at once with his scythe — saw and caught his brother by the back of his robe as he flew by.

Judgment swore violently, staring incredulously at his robe, once black but now splattered with pink and green paint. "Those dwarfs _will_ pay for what they have done!"

In different circumstances, Death probably would have laughed at his studious, ridiculous brother. So often do people wear their best suit to their last stand and then complain, even though it's no one's fault but their own. _"Right," _the amber-eyed boy said sarcastically, rolling his eyes before dodging sideways and popping back up to retaliate at the Yeti who had swung at him.

Unknown, for some strange reason, didn't seem to be getting much of a fight. Everything he went up against either didn't see him, wouldn't fight him, didn't think of him as a threat, or just plain ignored him. The fairies wouldn't even look at him and the elves steered clear of him too, yet he was wielding that quarterstaff and weaving his way through the battle without any apparent effort. He still seemed as pale and terrified out of his wits as always, but Death saw the faint flicker of determination in his mirrorlike eyes.

Then he got knocked to the side by a Yeti's huge fist and forgot about his younger brother, as he was too busy cursing.

XXXXXXXXX

In their own separate fight high above the others, experience was beginning to trump training as Jack started gaining the upper hand over Tempest. They fought and raged, Tempest shooting curses and taunts and Jack slinging them back at her.

"Come on, Ice-for-brains, is that all you've got?" she teased, releasing an arrow at the winter spirit.

Lithely Jack ducked and came back with, "Oh please, Thunder Butt. I'm not even breaking a sweat."

At one point, the girl called down a bolt of lightning through the skylight, but when she sent it at Jack, the spirit deflected it with his staff and sent the bolt streaking back towards her. It hit her on the left shoulder, sending her flying backwards into the wall. She connected with the wood with a sickening crack and slid limply to the ground.

Jack winced. He hadn't meant to really hurt her, just knock her off balance so he could maybe get Sandy to knock her out, but on the bright side, at least she wasn't trying to kill him anymore, right? Jack hovered in the air for a few frozen moments, waiting for her to jump up and make a move, but she just lay there, moaning. Cautiously, he made his way down to her. If she was setting him up, well, he had the upper hand here, seeing as her bow was too far away for her to reach in time.

"Give up," he said, stepping forward while keeping his grip on his staff. "You can't win."

Tempest tried to get to her feet, but she only made it to her knees, her hands braced against the wall to support her weak body. She almost looked like she was praying. Trying to sound tough, she let out a ragged laugh, which faltered and turned to a hacking cough. "Never!" she spat, trying to lift her head. A bit of blood dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. "My father will be restored to his rightful place on earth and — " She could not finish. A paroxysm of coughing racked her body and she struggled just to keep herself from hitting the floor again.

"Give up," Jack repeated, bending down until the hook of his staff was at her chest and they were at equal eye level. Their eyes locked, blue with blue, and Jack saw in hers a deadly mixture of pain, anger, hatred, and fear. "You can't fight anymore."

Her loathing glare lasted for about a second until realization seemed to sink in. Her face lost all traces of fury, settling for blank fatalism. "You're right," she sighed, almost as if in awe that she wasn't. "I can't fight anymore."

"Look around," Jack said. Maybe he could get her to stop her siblings and they could talk like civilized immortal beings. "Your siblings aren't winning. Soon you'll all be either in a dungeon or dead."

"You can't fool me, Guardian," she snapped imperiously, giving him an all-knowing look. "Your kind don't kill _children." _The last word was spat out like a curse.

"You're not children," said Jack flatly before he could stop himself. "You're…"

"Nightmares?" Tempest finished, smiling grimly.

Taken somewhat aback, Jack nodded, not sure if she was going to scream and attack him again if he said the answer outright. But she did nothing. Instead she pushed herself to her knees, sat back on her heels, and gazed out at the chaos around them. Jack looked too, keeping a firm hand on his staff in case it was a trick. In the panorama before them, Nightmare Children were fighting, Guardians were defending, Yetis were bellowing and throwing things, and elves with paintball guns were bashing the ankles of the Nightmare Children. If the darkly dressed attackers weren't fighting to kill, it might have actually been funny.

"I think that we used to be children. But we're not anymore." Jack glanced down at Tempest to see that she had lowered her eyes. "We're Nightmare Children. This is what we were bred to do." A note of sadness leaked into her voice. Even if it was just an act, if it was just a trick, there was a distinct bit of truth ringing in her words.

"You know," she coughed, wiped the blood off her lips, and looked back at him, "I've never been in a real battle. It's just been training, year after year after year until we all got good enough." She smirked humorlessly. "Heck, Unknown and Judgment _still _aren't that good in a fight." For the first time, she actually sounded like a real kid who spoke in contractions and improper grammar.

"You see what I mean?" asked the bright-eyed Jack, hoping he could get her to end this. Maybe she wasn't _all _Nightmare. There was still a bit of Child left in her, somewhere. "I know you guys've been trained by Pitch to kill us, but you don't have to! You guys are just…kids!"

He saw her eyes twinkle with amusement, then she braced her hands against the wall again and struggled to her feet. "Jack Frost," she said, drawing herself up to her full height, which in all honesty wasn't much, "your persistence has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways. I will call off my siblings."

Jack blinked and rose as well, though his movement was sharper and in surprise. "Come again?"

"You're right," she admitted. "We don't have to fight just because our father says so. We won't kill you and, with enough time of negotiations and quiet contemplation, someday we may get our father to return to the path of light."

Jack's eyebrows flew up. She was giving up? Just like that? Wow. He must have had better diplomacy skills than he thought. "Um…uh…I guess that sounds okay."

Tempest managed a weak smile and tried to walk forward, presumably to shake hands, but then she gasped and stumbled. Reflexively Jack rushed to her side to help her up. "Are you o — "

The remainder of the word never came out, because Tempest's conveniently clenched fist smashed into his face, very effectively getting him away from her, shutting him up, and giving her a moment to recover — because after all, her pain had not been completely feigned. Honestly, when you are hurled into a wall by magic lightning, whether you are a spirit, a human, or a bit of both, you're going to feel the effects later. As the disoriented and agonized Jack clumsily staggered to his feet, his hands scrabbling around his bleeding nose, Tempest scooped up her fallen bow, loaded it with a heavy black arrow, drew back the string, and prepared to fire.

"You heroes," she smiled contemptuously just as her fingers began to let the taut bowstring slip loose. "So _gullible!_ It's a wonder that you were ever able to defeat our father…"

She was about to release the arrow when something small and grey barreled into Jack's vulnerable body, sending him flying again.

Through his panicked eyes blurred by blood and reflex tears, Jack tried to get a look at this new attacker as he tried to pin his still-disoriented body down. But as he looked up, Jack saw…himself. A younger, smaller, and wilder version, not to mention a…um…well, I suppose you could call the boy a _greyer _version of Jack, seeing as that was exactly what he was. Bare feet. Silver hair. Thin face. Pale skin. _Himself, _had it not been for the black armor and those wide, wild eyes that, instead of cobalt blue, were a strange shimmering shade of silver that he somehow couldn't focus on. But himself.

"Unknown," Tempest hissed, facepalming with the hand that didn't hold the bow. "Why? _Why _do you always have to mess up _everything _you touch?!"

"He was about to attack you!" Unknown protested, the last word somewhat garbled when Jack rolled to the side out from under his grasp and the Nightmare Child yelped as he thudded on the empty floor where his captive had _once _been. Both boys scrambled to their feet and scooped up their staffs — Jack his wooden shepherd's crook and Unknown his straight metal quarterstaff — and commenced in a staff-to-staff duel.

"I was about to _kill _him!" hissed Tempest, completely ignoring the obvious fact that her little brother was not winning the fight. "Why couldn't you — " Her ranting was cut off as a huge and very angry Yeti, which had previously been chasing Unknown, slammed into her. She only had time to curse Unknown's future grave — and by her word choice she wished it to be in the _very _near future — before she was thrown against the wall like a rag doll, for the second time that day falling limply to the ground. But this time, she didn't get up.

"Tempest!" shouted Unknown, which was probably the loudest he had ever spoken in his entire fourteen-year-old existence. His moment's distraction was enough for Jack to take advantage of, and the winter spirit's bare foot shot out and caught his adversary in the stomach. Unknown stumbled backwards and accidentally let go of his quarterstaff, which the nearby Dark promptly tripped over during his duel with a very angry Santa Claus. When Dark tried to regain his balance, North slammed the hilt of his sword into Dark's temple and knocked the boy out cold — though whether it was on accident or on purpose is a mystery.

Now, Dark was one of the most important members of the twelve, among Pain and Wrath, who were the two leaders, and Loss, the strategist. Dark was the one who cleared the path, the one who dimmed the lights enough for the others to come out. Being still very human themselves, they weren't completely averse to light, but the nightmare sand that ran through their veins had some influence over their states of humanity. When in the light, they were jumpy and a bit more distracted than they would have been in the darkness. And, for the obvious reason. They'd been living in a cave for ten years; of course they weren't going to be that used to the light.

So when Dark fell unconscious, the clouds that he and Tempest — who was also very conveniently out of the fight — had summoned to block out the moonlight broke up and dissipated, letting the light of the thin crescent moon and the stars flood in. The lights that Dark had put out in the initial charge also flickered back on, causing all of the remaining ten Nightmare Children to flinch and falter in their attacks.

Unknown scrambled to reach Tempest's limp form, but that accursed Frost kid blocked his path. Unknown's metal quarterstaff, which he had retrieved from the floor, swung up, and the weighted silver knob at the end of the staff crashed into Jack's jaw. He went reeling back, and the prepared projectile of ice and lightning went haywire. It zinged in all directions and found targets on Wrath, Death, Pain, Solitude, Suffering, Judgment, North, Bunnymund, Tooth, Sandy, and quite a few Yetis. They weren't completely knocked out, but they all received painful cuts and were thrown to the ground. Sandy and Suffering tumbled out of the air and had only a split second to right themselves. They crashed anyway.

Pain was the first to recover. "Fall back!" she commanded, her voice somewhat slurred from the aftershocks of being hit by lightning and an octave higher than usual due to the sudden light. She was the only one who didn't seem bothered by the shards of ice sticking out of her skin. "Retreat! Retreat!"

Nightmares galloped down from the skylight and their owners mounted them a bit too eagerly. Unknown got to his feet and struggled to drag the still-unconscious Dark away from the center of the chaos, though Shame stepped in and easily hoisted the unconscious Nightmare Child over her shoulder with a complaint that Unknown was being a wimp and needed to lift more weights. At a whistle, the boy's own Nightmare galloped up to him, and he hopped on. It sped off with him before he could remember who he had forgotten, and when he did, he was already too far to turn back. As he and his siblings fled by way of the skylight, he shouted to Pain and Wrath, "What about Tempest?"

"Forget her," replied Wrath, speeding ahead to get to the front. "Only the strong survive. She's just dead weight now."

But Unknown couldn't help but hesitate as he looked back at the quickly shrinking Pole in the distance before yanking up his sweatshirt hood, turning his back, and snapping the reins of his Nightmare to make it go faster.

Father was going to kill him for the mess he had made.

.

**If you have read my ridiculously long profile and have seen the Evil Overlord List posted somewhere within its abysmal depths, then you will remember that Tempest's trick of "returning to the path of light" was one of the those listed. I do not own this. All rights to this frankly quite clever tactic belong to Peter Anspach, the author of that genius list. I just could not help but use it, seeing as the opportunity just seemed to beg.**

**That said, bye for like idk how long because I've got school starting soon and I haven't touched my summer homework yet.**

**And then Unknown won't be the only one in deep crap.**


	5. Punishment

**Quickie post before I vanish into the unknown for nine months. Meaning a new school.**

**This seriously feels like the last meal before the execution.**

**chocykitty: It's actually quite an interesting book. It's another one about Greek mythology. The only problem is that the narration is as boring as all Asphodel…"He did this heroic thing. Then he did this. Then he left his wife on a rock to die. Then he went back. Then there was party thing. Then this king died. Blah. Blah. BLAH." Too bad I'm not at the private school anymore…their summer reading list this year included Unwind _and_ The Watch That Ends the Night****_. _****I mean…I read those years ago. But still, I'm jealous.  
FlightFeathers: Mmm…Mystic did a lot of the elaboration on the fights. So yes, Pain and Tooth — that was all hers, with a bit of tweaking from me but not much. I ****_was _****responsible for that Jack vs. Tempest mess… *facedesk* Dear gods, I really do hate her. Tempest, that is…I love Mystichawk.  
MacaroniCheese: Did you mean: ****_Dear Fanfiction Writers?  
_****Dark-Automaton: Ahh, I remember sleepovers…unfortunately the only sleepovers I ever go to are composed completely of Christian homeschoolers who still aren't allowed to watch anything above a PG rating without getting parental permission, and the one public school dork who is me…I may be a bit rusty in how regular sleepovers work. True, the homeschool sleepovers are fun. Homeschooled young writers can be incredibly morbid for people who aren't allowed to watch Hunger Games. But still, it's not the same.**

**Yeah…I just went on SpringHole and took the Mary Sue Litmus Test for Tempest, and she scored like a 78 or something… :|**

**That's why I hated her. It all makes sense now.**

* * *

As he waited for punishment to be dealt, Unknown started to wish that Pitch actually _would_ kill him.

He and his ten remaining siblings stood in a straight line — Dark had woken up on the ride home — before their father. They were ragged, exhausted, bloody, mottled with wounds, in some cases barefoot (somehow Solitude had lost both socks and one shoe ((?)) and Unknown had taken shoes and socks off when he'd snuck into the Pole), and splattered with neon paint. Yet Pitch showed them little mercy.

_"__Never _retreat," he snapped as he stalked up and down the line. He was agitated, that much was obvious. He was also angry — no, _livid,_ and each time he passed by, Unknown unconsciously shrunk a few inches lower, but Pitch was too preoccupied with his own thoughts and their failure to notice. If he hadn't been, he probably would have struck the youngest boy in his rage. "That is all I have told you for _years! _To _never _retreat, _never _back down, _never let them have the upper hand! _And what did you do? You let your sister get captured by the enemy and then just _left!"_

"It was Unknown's fault!" blurted Judgment as Pitch passed him near the end of the line. The other Nightmare Children's eyes flew to the youngest of their siblings as Pitch rounded on Judgment. Shame felt her shame-o-meters skyrocket and tried to suppress a grin.

_"__What?!"_ Pitch nearly yelped.

Unknown wished he could fall through the floor or turn invisible, but he knew the repercussions of hiding when his father was in a rage. All eyes were on him and he lowered his head, almost positive as to what was coming next. Punishment. He tried to shrink deeper into the shadows at the end of the line without actually disappearing, but the urge to run was overwhelming. Danger, who was standing beside him, elbowed him hard in the side and whispered not-so-quietly, "Busted."

"Yes Father," interjected Pain. "Tempest was knocked unconscious, but only after Unknown distracted her." She then commenced in laying out an account of events surprisingly detailed for someone who had, at the time, been dueling a very angry bird-woman hybrid with a sword.

Pitch kept his gaze fixed on Pain as she supplied the events of the battle and only when she had finished with a smug smile did he turn to the prosecuted.

"Is this true, Unknown?" he asked.

As always, the boy was avoiding everyone's eyes, but he didn't deny it. He just nodded mutely and continued to stare at the floor, holding his metal quarterstaff in the crook of one arm and keeping the other shoved inside the pocket of his hoodie. No one saw the tears brimming in his eyes and his clenched teeth as he tried to keep them from escaping.

The Nightmare King sighed mightily and, just as Unknown braced himself to be grabbed by the ankles and hung upside down by nightmare sand as befitted his punishment, he heard his father speak. "All of you, leave us. Clean up, then go practice in the training room."

"What?" several teenaged voices yelped at once.

"But _Dad — " _Danger whined.

"No buts!" Pitch snapped and most of them fell silent, except for Dark who was trying not to laugh.

"He said butts," the seventeen-year-old snickered to Shame, who had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing too.

Pitch sent them both a glare and they shut up. Seriously, sometimes these kids acted like they hadn't aged a day since he named them.

"Just get out of here," he gritted his teeth and tried to keep himself from lashing out at the teenagers. Anger was a difficult thing to control, but he'd managed to keep it in with the kids. Mostly. He sighed and forced the words out. "Unknown, stay. We need to talk. Alone," he added to the others.

The youngest boy almost looked up then, his eyes wider than usual and his mouth slightly open, but he forced himself to keep looking at the floor. His father _wasn't _going to hang him upside down in front of the others? Well, that was a bit better, but now that they were alone he had no idea what punishment his father could inflict.

As the other ten filed out of the throne room Pain smirked at Unknown. Served him right. If the little squirt had just stayed out of the way, they might be celebrating the Guardians' deaths right now instead of marching off to practice. Wrath, angry and impulsive as always, glared at Unknown, and Death cast a sympathetic half-smile towards his brother. Death had a few suspicions as to what kind of punishment he was to be facing and, if not for the complete lack of morals in his soul, he might have felt sorry for him. As he did not have any morals and was currently more occupied with the fact that there was pink paint in his luscious locks of hair, he just smiled and sidled out with the others. Unknown saw none of this, however. For all three, the boy just stood there and kept his eyes on the stone floor.

When they were alone, Pitch sank down into his throne, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples in exasperation. His plan, his beautiful plan, was in pieces. He felt so tired, so angry, so strangely _old._ After all these years of planning, it had all come apart because of this…this Last Child, this one he had called his own son, the one he had hoped would become the most powerful. He had known that a few things could have gone wrong and he'd figured he could just find ways around them, but he had assumed that it would be the Guardians trying to sabotage his plans, not his own shirking, cowering _son!_

After a long silence, Unknown tentatively looked up for the first time since they had returned to the caves. When he caught his father's amber gaze piercing through him with a mixture of disgust and exasperation, he quickly averted them again.

"I can't say that I am highly disappointed in you, Unknown Black," said Pitch icily, keeping his eyes fixed on the boy's hoodie, "because that would be an understatement."

He didn't respond verbally, but Pitch saw him flinch at the words.

Pitch sighed. "Look at me, Unknown," he said, using the air of command he always held yet trying to make his tone softer. The boy was the epitome of a wallflower and would curl up into a ball if you so much as snapped at him.

That shaggy white head, hidden under the grey hood, lifted a bit so that he could see the shining yet colorless eyes peeking out from the shadows cast on his paper-white face. There was no emotion in them, just tentative, blank indifference. Unknown was skilled in the art of wiping all readable emotions from his face, but Pitch didn't have to be a professional body language interpreter to know what the boy was feeling — he was scared.

Somewhere, buried inside Pitch's cold heart, there was still a spark of life remaining. This spark felt for the boy and stirred something from a long ago memory — a memory that had been pushed away by the darkness inside. A memory of a dark-haired little girl giggling as she ran towards his outstretched arms, of laughter, and of light. Then the memory was gone like a flash of lightning, leaving Pitch the cold, empty shell of a being that he was. He could feel the memory slipping away into that void through which even he could not traverse, but he could also feel that spark of humanity in him glowing like a coal in a black hearth. And as he gazed into the eyes of the solemn boy before him, the image of the smiling girl returned — if only for the briefest of moments.

Pitch closed his eyes and began to rub his temples again. These blasted memory-flashes had been happening more and more often since he had welcomed the Nightmare Children into his home. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't really interacted with kids, except to scare them of course, for so long, or maybe it was just his blasted hard heart softening at the sight of such a fearful boy before him. Well, whatever it was, he was getting tired of it. If he didn't keep these children in line they might actually begin to use their heads and try to overthrow him, and that would not do at all. Danger already snuck out of the lair on a regular basis and he suspected Wrath and Dark slipped out once in a while to meet girls; if the others started to do the same he would start to lose his hold on them.

He looked up at Unknown. He examined the boy's skinny frame, grey hoodie, and metal staff, then sighed bitterly. He didn't know if it was some kind of sick joke on the part of the transformation magic or if it was just coincidence, but this boy looked so much like Jack Frost that it made him want to scream sometimes. He knew the boy couldn't help it, probably didn't have the faintest of ideas that even his wardrobe choices almost mirrored that of the winter spirit, but it still enraged him. It was like being constantly reminded that a skinny _child _had defeated him and his Nightmares. Even now, Frost was a constant thorn in his side and the thorn just dug itself deeper whenever he looked upon Unknown. Any deeper and it would soon pierce his heart, breaking something that might never repair.

After turning over different possibilities of the boy's fate during that long silence, Pitch decided to show a bit of mercy. It hadn't been entirely his fault anyway; he hadn't been ready. But of course Pitch couldn't just let Unknown off the hook entirely. That would send the message that he was sympathetic and weak, so he chose to disguise the mercy as a punishment. Honestly, the kid probably didn't care what happened to him, so long as it meant getting away from the penetrating, convicting gaze of his father.

"I have decided that you will no longer partake in these escapades of revenge," Pitch said finally, standing up and making an effort to sound disciplinary. Unknown's head shot up and Pitch was sure he could see relief in the boy's eyes before it vanished and his face was hidden by the mask of blank indifference once again. "You shall stay here at the lair while your siblings rescue your sister and deal my revenge on the Guardians." There. That sounded like a suitable punishment. And it might give him time to learn more about the boy's powers. If his siblings were gone, he might open up a bit more.

"They won't rescue her," blurted Unknown before he could stop himself. Pitch frowned, then an amused smile crept up his face and he sat back down in his black throne.

"Oh?" he asked. "What makes you say that?"

He looked away and whispered something inaudible. Pitch tapped the arm of his black marble throne to get his attention. "Unknown, you know I hate asking twice."

"Only the strong survive," he repeated, recognizable bitterness creeping into his words.

Pitch froze. Had the boy really just said that? Yes, maybe Pitch _had _told the children that himself and yes, maybe he _had _told them to abide by it with their lives because it might as well save them, but he hadn't really expected it to be used against him. As reluctant as he was to admit it, Pitch had grown fond of the children, especially Tempest. He knew it wasn't good to pick favorites, but she was just so obedient and eager to do whatever he wanted her to…a perfect puppet. And there was just something about her that reminded him so much of himself, and of that little girl in his elusive memories. Whatever he had told the children before mattered not now.

"True," he conceded, "very true. But there is a flaw in your logic, Unknown. Without Tempest, none of you would have survived for long in that fight."

Yes, Pitch was right. Without her and Dark, barely any of the siege would have been possible. Once she'd been knocked out, Dark couldn't hold the clouds there and couldn't block the moonlight.

"And just go into the training room, where your siblings are now, and you will see. I would bet that they are going at each others' throats by this point because Tempest isn't there to whack them back into reality."

He lowered his hooded head and nodded silently again. Again, what Pitch said was true. At the risk of sounding ridiculously clichéd and unbelievably pathetic, Tempest was like the glue that held the other Nightmare Children together — at least, when she herself wasn't fighting. Fiery enough to make people do what she said, horribly arrogant at times but smart enough to know when to stand down and let others step to the plate, strong enough to take a good dose of criticism, and flexible enough to fix what needed to be fixed or even improvise. A natural leader. Without her, they all just fell apart.

Unlike him.

Bitterness and self-resentment began to bubble in his chest, a familiar and dangerous mixture. He hardly ever felt emotions, but when he did, they were almost never good. Sure, he'd messed up pretty badly in the past, but this time he knew he deserved all the punishment in the world. Because if he had been the one to be captured, which he should have been, no one would have cared. They probably wouldn't even have noticed that he was gone, which was why he should leave the noble and nefarious deeds to his more capable siblings, right? He messed everything up, couldn't even assist in a siege without causing it to collapse. Useless, that was what he was. Pitch wouldn't lose anything by letting him stay at home.

But still, there was something that just didn't feel _right _about sitting at home and sulking while his sister was in the hands of the enemy. He felt the self-resentment being pushed back down by an emotion he'd never felt before. _Responsibility. _Tempest had stood up for him, given him a chance to prove himself. She had _trusted _him. She'd even _smiled _at him when he'd come back successful from infiltrating the lair. But then he'd let her down and it had all gone back to square one — back to when she thought he couldn't do anything right, when she'd only thought of him as a coward — all because of what he'd done.

Maybe if he could save her then he could be redeemed. Maybe she'd be proud of him again. Maybe she'd come back to Pitch on the back of his Nightmare, praising him as a hero.

Maybe, just maybe, he had a chance.

"I am finished with you, for now," Pitch continued. "When your siblings leave, we will talk more. Now, I would advise you to go to your room, maybe to the library. Just don't go near your siblings; give them a few to cool down."

"A few what?" Unknown asked, his voice wobbling in pent-up frustration. "Hours? Months? Years?"

There was a hesitation as the Nightmare King tried to choose. "I don't know. Try all three." He thought and then added, "Though I would go for one of the latter two."

Unknown nodded gravely, clenching his teeth in frustration with himself and completely missing the unintentional joke — because when had his father ever made a joke? "Yes, Father."

"Now go," said Pitch. "I have a rescue in need of planning."

The last and least of the Nightmare Children, the small albino with the seemingly harmless quarterstaff, only nodded again and slunk into the shadows.

XXXXXXXXX

Several thousand miles away, the North Pole was doing its best impression of a military sickbay. Patients lay on the beds of the many guest rooms, being treated by the less severely wounded. Bundles of gauze were being passed out and thrown away faster than Kleenexes and the amount of blood seen on the bandages was horrifying, to say the least. No one was without a job. The battle against the Nightmare Children had left the Pole and all its inhabitants in a dire state. It was lucky for North that it was only early January, because pretty much everything had been destroyed or at least damaged and they were back to square one.

The Guardians were doing no better than the rest. Even though they were immortal and healed from physical wounds very quickly, they could still be killed or wounded in battle. Bunnymund's fur was a torn, bloody mess. North felt older than ever and was forced to replace his favorite red shirt, which had been torn to shreds by Dark and Wrath. Jack had a broken nose (Tempest's work) and a dislocated jaw (Unknown's work).

Toothiana had several wing injuries and a nasty cut on her cheek, but these she ignored due to the death of one of her fairies — not Baby Tooth, thankfully, but one of her head lieutenants instead. The little bird had been killed by one of Loss's silver throwing stars, whether intentionally or coincidentally no one knew. The pain, both emotional and physical, was indescribable. It was like a part of her had been torn away, leaving her numb yet agonized at the same time.

The only one of the five who was still relatively intact was Sandy, but he wore a look of rage and utter hatred that did not fade for quite a while after the battle. They found that he had been fighting Suffering and from the angry sand images the other Guardians learned that the little dreammaker was utterly horrified that Pitch would send anyone like her to fight. Sandy was repulsed that Pitch would dare try to bring up such a poor, mistreated girl as a super soldier just for the sake of revenge. It made the other Guardians even angrier and North actually started shaking when he learned what Suffering had looked like.

"He has done some terrible things in the past," the usually jolly Guardian said coldly when they had all gathered together for a damage report and Sandy had told of his fight with Suffering. "But dis is de lowest. How could he possibly _live_ with himself after doing this?"

Sandy shrugged and made an outline of Pitch's profile.

"Sandy's right, mate, it is _Pitch _we're talking about," Bunny said. "He tried to kill us and hurt Jamie…what? Ten, eleven years ago, right? What makes now any more different?"

The other Guardians just nodded reluctant assent or adjusted the bandages on their wounds.

Several hours later, they received notice of all counted casualties. Five brave Yetis had died in the battle, but Phil, the one who had been struck by Tempest's arrow, was alive. Critically wounded, but alive and holding on.

Upon learning this, North was ecstatic and rushed to the Yeti's room. The others followed at a respectful distance.

"Phil, my friend, how are you doing?" North asked, bending down to inspect the wound. The doctor Yetis had cut the hair away from the puncture, which Phil was rather annoyed at, and then had taken the arrow out cleanly and carefully. Luckily for Phil, North kept a large supply of medicines and bandages in one of the many storerooms of the Pole, so he had been graciously unconscious at the time. When he had woken up, the other Yetis had carefully cleaned the wound and bandaged it tightly.

Phil made a low grunting noise and North smiled. "You are welcome, dear friend. You will live to fight another day."

The Yeti smiled back and the Guardians were about to leave him to get some rest when he raised a pained arm and said something in Yetish to North.

North stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened, then a furious scowl formed on his face. The other Guardians nearly flinched and when he turned back to Phil, his normally bright eyes were dark and narrowed to slits.

"Where is she?" he said in a low, terrifying voice that made Phil shrink a little back against his pillow. "What did you do with her?"

Phil said something else in that strange language that was incomprehensible to the other four Guardians, though they assumed the Yeti was talking about Tempest. In all the commotion they hadn't remembered the would-be murderess until now and when they did, their expressions all darkened along with North's as he listened.

"Whazzhe shayin'?" asked Jack, whose speech was somewhat slurred due to the special magic washcloth that he was holding on his broken nose to staunch the bleeding and quicken the already-quick healing process.

"Tempest has been…incarcerated," North replied slowly, obviously trying to keep himself from stomping down to find the girl and wringing her neck. "She has been put in only place secure enough for her kind. You know where that is."

Bunny's eyes widened. "Cell One? Ya would really go so far — "

"Wai', whaz Cell One?" inquired the nasally impaired winter spirit.

The four older Guardians exchanged glances. "Back when I was first building North Pole," began North, turning back to the others and heading out of the room. The other Guardians followed him as he headed for the stairs that led to the lower areas of the Pole. "Pitch had just been defeated. We were not sure if he would come back, so we were careful. I built prison cell in basement of Pole, special for Pitch or others of his kind in case he came back with friends."

"We call it Cell One," said Tooth quietly, whose eyes were still red and puffy from mourning. "It was built to hold Pitch for millennia, so it should be secure enough for his daughter."

Jack's eyes were hard as he followed the others and took the washcloth off his nose to increase the dramatic effect of his next one-liner. "We'll see about that."

XXXXXXXXX

North wasn't kidding when he said it was in the basement. Two hundred feet underground and built straight into the ice and rock, it was one of the coldest places in the Pole despite the special heating vents that had been installed decades ago. Bright fluorescent lights glared down from the ceiling of the dead-end hallway leading to Cell One, probably to prevent any shadow-manipulating spirit from melting into darkness and escaping that way.

When Jack voiced this theory, North had assured him that the lights were just extra precautions, seeing as shadow travel was virtually impossible anyway. The walls and brass bars of the cell's door were all infused with star sand, a magical element that North explained — with a little help from Sandy — could repel shadows and darkness so that there was no way she could use her powers to slip through the bars or pass beyond the walls.

Through the cell door, which was actually something of a gate seeing as it was just brass rails from floor to ceiling, they saw Tempest lying limply in the center of the white-walled, brightly lit room. She was out cold, so North pulled out a large golden key and unlocked the door. The second he entered and looked upon that girl's face, all the built-up rage exploded out of him and he stormed over to her, ranting and cursing in Russian and quite a few other languages. Tempest did not even stir. Tooth put a gentle hand on North's shoulder, then she knelt beside the girl and brushed her hair out of her face.

"She's just a kid," Tooth whispered, wiping a smear of blood from the girl's chin. "Fifteen, maybe sixteen at the most. I don't even think her wisdom teeth have come in yet."

Sandy summed up everyone's thoughts with a dreamsand question mark.

"This isn't about age or teeth, sheila," hissed Bunny, who refused to enter the cell. "She is Pitch's daughter. She started that attack on us!"

"She broke my nose, if you're wondering," put in Jack irritably, but since the flow of blood from his nose had intensified and he now did not dare take the enchanted washcloth off it, his words came out more like "see boke by node, ip yu wutherig".

"But still," Tooth protested, straightening up and fixing the other Guardians with a downcast look, "what kind of father would send his children, none of them more than _teenagers, _to eliminate his enemies?"

Sandy created a dreamsand image of the veiled face of the small, skinny Suffering, accompanying it with a very angry scowl of his own.

"You're right, Sandy," said Tooth. "It's cruel and inhumane, that's what it is."

North, who had calmed down somewhat after his fit, was now examining the girl thoughtfully. He still felt rage for his friend, but he knew that he should not act upon it. "I do not think they are even his real children," he suddenly said.

Sandy made the face of Pitch, then the face of Tempest, and melded them together.

"Yes Sandy, they are alike, but only in color and manner," said North. "I think…he must have given them his powers somehow. I don't know how, but something tells me that they are not his."

"The number, for one," Bunny muttered. "_Twelve_ kids? I can't imagine anyone having even_ one _with that bastard."

"That's even worse!" Tooth cried, obviously not hearing or ignoring Bunny's crude comment.

But her shrill cry had more repercussions than you might think. It pierced through whatever state of unconsciousness Tempest was in and she groaned, shifting her arm. The Guardians took several wary steps back. The girl groaned again and rolled onto her side, turning her back to the Guardians as she muttered something about sleeping in and reached for nonexistent covers to snuggle into. Upon finding none and placing her hand instead on the cold stone floor, her eyes shot open in surprise.

One second passed, then two. The Guardians stared down at her and she stared up at them. Then, without any form of warning, she leaped to her feet and, keeping both eyes on the Guardians, snapped up her hand for arrows in a quiver that wasn't there. Jack couldn't help but smirk contemptuously when he saw her surprise, but this smirk promptly vanished when Tempest whipped a hidden dagger out from the sleeve of her jacket and pounced for the closest one of them. Him.

It all happened so fast. One moment Tempest was confused and scared, the next she was behind Jack with her blade pressed against the soft, cold flesh of his throat. He tried to fight, but he had been drained of energy by the rapid healing and could barely land a punch before she yanked the staff out of his hands and threw it behind her. In one swift motion, she pulled him close and whispered mock-sweetly into his ear as the cold knife bit into his skin, "You might be cute, but I won't hesitate to murder you."

Jack would have nodded had there not been a very sharp object pressing against the relatively important thing that attached his head to the rest of his body. The way she had grabbed him and put him under the blade had been executed swiftly, fluidly, and within the space of a heartbeat. No one doubted that she could execute Jack in the same way.

"If any of you make a move I don't like," she threatened, her voice loud but slightly raspy, which didn't quite match her British accent, "I will kill him. And I'm not afraid to do it either."

Jack did not disagree. She was, after all, backed up in the proverbial corner with nothing to lose. But he still did not like the prospect.

He glanced nervously at the other Guardians. North had a hand on one of his swords, but didn't dare draw it. Bunny's fists were clenched and his green eyes were narrowed in cold hatred. Sandy was contemplative, yet determined, as if he was calculating how fast he would be able to knock the girl out.

Tooth just looked ashamed. "Sorry, Jack. I didn't think I'd wake her up."

"Can it, bird girl!" Tempest snapped, pressing the blade harder against Jack's throat. He gasped as he felt it break the surface of the soft skin, enough to let a scarlet path trace itself down his neck in a warning but not enough to do any vital harm. "Now, here's what's going to happen: we're going to leave. You're going to let me out of this prison, take me up to the open room, and let us leave. Frost'll be a big consolation prize for my father and it might even get me out of the doghouse, so I'll be taking him back with me. Oh," she smiled nastily. "I almost forgot. I'll be holding this pretty little blade at his neck the entire time, so if you decide to do anything stupid — "

Whatever she was going to say next was lost forever when her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed to the ground. The black dagger skittered out of her hands and Jack staggered backwards, clutching his bleeding throat and nose. Little dreamsand shapes of cherries — _why cherries? _they all wondered — floated around Tempest's head, and everyone instantly looked at Sandy. The little golden man just shrugged innocently and bent down to pick up Tempest's small black knife. It disintegrated into black dreamsand at his touch, then transformed into shimmering gold dust.

Tooth checked the girl over for more weapons — once being a warrior herself, she knew where girls hid their weapons — but found only a pouch of blue-tinted nightmare sand in her jacket pocket, which Sandy quickly eliminated. She also removed her black armor and any objects that Tempest could use to escape, i.e. hairpins, paperclips, earrings, and any other thing that could be used to pick a lock and/or stab someone. Jack, who was a little sick of having blades pressed to his throat, suggested chaining her up, but Tooth glared at him.

"She's still a child," she hissed, glaring at the other Guardians and daring them to disagree with her. "Hostile or no, we are _not _chaining her up."

"But — " Jack tried to protest.

Tooth gave him a look that put him in the shade, frost-wise, and repeated, "We are _not_ chaining her up."

After that fiasco, the Guardians decided wisely that it wouldn't be safe to stay in the same cell as the little assassin, so they exited Cell One and resigned themselves to watching Tempest through the cell door. They were waiting quite a while, during which Tooth chirped incessantly with some of the Mini Fairies that had followed her down and the male Guardians whispered about her overreacting "maternal instincts". They didn't want her to become too attached to the enemy, even and especially if it was a purely instinctive familial attachment.

After quite a while of waiting, Jack glanced over to Sandy and hissed through the washcloth, "Ow yog udtil see ways uh?" (Translation from Broken-Nose-ese to English: How long until she wakes up?)

Sandy seemed to get the gist without the author's parenthesized translations. He held up three fingers. Then two, then just his index finger. When that went down to a fist Tempest let out a howl of rage and blearily shouted something about finding out how fast an immortal winter spirit dies after his throat is cut. Real happy stuff. Jack actually winced.

"What — " she spluttered once she regained complete consciousness. She scrambled over to the cell doors and gripped the bars. "I command you, let me out!" Outside the Pole, thunder rumbled.

Jack wanted to say something flippant, but voted against it seeing as it would have made him sound ridiculous with the washcloth. He lifted said magical washcloth off his face experimentally. Hey, his nose felt like it was back in one piece again! And the bleeding had stopped entirely. "Wow, North. That's a really awesome washcloth," he remarked, which as he realized too late made him sound a whole lot more ridiculous than whatever it was he was going to say before.

The Guardians, the Yeti sentries, and Tempest all stared at him. Tooth whistled, "Random…"

"I'm going to ignore that now," said Tempest icily, which made her sound uncannily like Pitch once again. "And I will tell you only once more: LET ME OUT, or suffer the consequences."

"Suffer what consequences?" teased Jack, who had regained his sarcasm with his nose and voice. "Are you going to shock me?"

He got closer to her as he said it, which the other, older, wiser Guardians instantly knew was a bad move. North remembered too late that star sand only worked to prevent shadow and darkness-related powers, not electricity-related powers…

Before Jack could even jump back or raise his staff in defense, Tempest's slender arm shot through the bars and her finger brushed the back of his hand.

They all saw the spark of white-blue electricity that jumped from her finger to Jack's skin and no one missed the loud squeal let out by the surprised winter spirit as he jumped backwards. Upon looking back on the event, the spectators could recall that briefly Jack's skin had gone translucent and his skeleton had been visible by electricity.

"Like that?" replied Tempest, not without the hint of an amused smile. She really couldn't help it. When she had heard the first notes of sarcasm, her mind had automatically switched from Taciturn Assassin to Impulsive Teenager and had come up with, instead of an action that might help her get out, an action more reserved for her annoying siblings.

(It was a temporary malfunction, she would say later, in which her human side decided to make one of many appearances. Just a minor glitch in Pitch's webs of tampering, nothing meaningful.

Considering her drastic OOC-ness in the next chapter, this excuse can be easily ignored.)

But Jack wasn't without a counterstrike. Tempest's left hand was still gripping one of the brass bars of her cell door, and Jack quickly slid his fingers down that bar. Frost zipped down its length and froze Tempest's hand to the metal.

Tooth's hands were covering her mouth to hide her smile. Bunny was staring at them in a mixture of confusion, surprise, awkwardness, and disgust. Sandy was snickering silently. North sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"Hey!" Tempest yelped indignantly before regaining her senses and reaching towards him again. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to protest or maybe call for help, but for either he was too late. An arc of lightning — _real _lightning, not just a little spark — shot from her fingers and grazed Jack's shoulder, sending him reeling backwards.

Angrily, Jack regained his footing, lifted his staff, and aimed at her, which was when North intruded. "THAT IS _ENOUGH,_ JACKSON OVERLAND FROST!" he roared.

Surprised and a bit hurt, Jack lowered his staff. "Oh come on! I was just gonna give her a bit of frostbite! I wasn't going to actually hurt her!

"Yeah, if you call encasing my body in a solid ice _'a bit of frostbite'_," muttered Tempest as she tried to pry her hand from the brass bar. "And of course you wouldn't hurtme, because I'd already be _dead _by the time it started to hurt." Her glare was withering by the time she reached the heavily inflected and heavily annoyed word. "Hey, could someone lend me a crowbar, or a hairdryer, or something? My hand's stuck."

"Serves you right," sniffed Jack.

To whom Tooth warned with "Jack…" as Tempest sent him yet another glare that was cold even by his standards. The air around her began to crackle with live electricity and shocking heat, and the ice securing her hand melted away as thin tendrils of flame and lightning spiraled up her fingers. Around Jack, the temperature dropped past freezing, past zero, past arctic temperatures, and swirls of frost and lightning that almost mimicked Tempest's began to race around the shaft of his staff.

North pulled the winter spirit back, and the Yeti sentries aimed their tranquilizer crossbows at Tempest. Apparently she didn't want to return to the land of unconsciousness because the hot, fiery aura around her faded and the tiny flames dancing in her palms went out, but the searing electricity and blazing heat still crackled in her eyes.

"Let's get Icepop outta here before he kills someone," Bunny suggested wisely, taking the slightly shaking winter spirit by the shoulder and steering him towards the exit.

"Or she kills him," Tooth murmured.

"Hey, it's not _me _you've gotta worry about," Jack sniffed, resisting Bunny's paw slightly. "It's just Sparky over here needs to learn how to conduct herself."

When no one laughed, Jack threw his hands into the air in exasperation. "Seriously? _No one_ gets that?!"

Bunny rolled his eyes but kept the firm grip on the young spirit's shoulder and forced him to keep walking forward. "We'll have'ta discuss what to do with the sheila somewhere else," he said firmly.

"At least, if you survive that long!" shouted Tempest through the bars. Jack thought her voice sounded breathy and a bit desperate and, against Bunny's wishes, turned around to look at her one last time. Her blue eyes were wide and, when they caught on his, and unspoken emotion bloomed in both of their eyes. Hatred. Jack turned away again, but not before he caught the tiny glimmer of something else lacing the bitter contempt. Could it have been…fear?

"My father will send my siblings to rescue me!" she hollered as North opened the door to the stairs.

"If dey do, we will just be ready for them," he said shortly as he ushered the other Guardians in.

"You will regret this!" she screamed, slamming her fists against the bars and shaking them with all her might. "I swear that you will regret ever laying a hand on me!"

"Sure, Thunder Butt," said Jack sarcastically before the door slammed shut and blocked out the protests of the howling Nightmare Child.

He didn't know that in a way, she was right.

**XXXXXXXXX**

**Every pun pertaining to the Nightmare Children will be facepalmed over, stored in the Pun Folder of my email inbox and used in the final chapter.**

**…**

**Huh.**

**Most people don't beg for puns. Usually it's reviews.**

**You know, I always get a good laugh when I find someone who never reviews anything but then at the end of their chapter threatens not to post another chapter unless she gets a million reviews or whatever.**

**Here we go.**

**…**

**OMGZ WASN'T THAT CHAPTRRR SOOOOO AWESOME YUP IM A TOTES AWESOME WRITRE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR AND CHERRIES AND SPARKLES REAVIEW WITH PUNS. REVIEWS PUNS AND FAVORITES ANDE FOLLOW! XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD I WIL NOT POST MORE CHHCHAPTERS UNTLL I GET ****_A MILLION_****REVIEWS AND ****_A BILLION_****PUNS! DID YOU HEAR THAT! ****_A MILLION BILLION! _that makes two billionXD****NOW GET OVER HERE AND REEEVIIIIIIEW! XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD**

**…**

**I'm sorry. School starts Wednesday. I'm trying to burn off as much sarcasm as possible so I don't piss off ****_all _****of my teachers this year.**


	6. Attempt (The First)

**Sorry for the wait...I just joined the school musical and practices are forever, plus I'm trying to keep myself from posting a chapter until I finish another one, so we don't have some crazy back-up like in Death's Embrace. :/**

**chibissima: You're very much right. Someone ****_does _****need to talk with Unknown about deep heart-to-heart stuff. I wonder what's going to happen starting in chapter 9? OoO  
****FlightFeathers: I have other reason dear, but it's not til later. And…hmm…for some reason my methods for curing hateable characters is by either killing them painfully and making me pity them thus helping me not hate them so much, or by humiliating them and making them fall in love with the one person with whom it is extremely dangerous for them to fall in love — which I have found is one of the most effective. Love is one of the most powerful weapons out there, you know… ;)  
****Mystichawk: OSHMYGODS YOURE HEREe. ASDFGHJKL;im just happy you're happy :D I kinda…added…a lot and I wasn't sure… '~' but aaaaaaaa I'm so glad you still like it! :) GUYS EVERYONE PLEASE READ AND REVIEW ALL OF THE AMAZING MYSTICHAWK'S STUFF. SHE IS THE WONDERWOMAN WHO MADE ALL OF THIS POSSIBLE AND UGGH WOOOOOWWWW. Thanks girly! :D**

******And Unknown494, even though you did not review or follow for that matter: Thank you for favoriting and almost giving me a Level 5 fangirl attack at three in the morning. You should know better than to do that to me when I haven't had sleep… Just kidding. Love ya kid, whoever you are ;P**  


XXXXXXXXX

Naturally, Danger had to be the first to make the attempt.

Always Danger, and always first. She had to live up to her name, after all, and what better danger was there than sneaking out at night to infiltrate her father's worst enemies' base of operations? And right out from under her father's nose to boot! She hadn't even asked his permission before taking one of her favorite Nightmares and leaving with nothing but her two knives as protection. Of course Danger hadn't asked permission. What was she, a baby?

Danger had been outside the lair more times than all of the Nightmare Children combined and, after the first five years, the other Nightmare Children and even her father got used to her spontaneously disappearing. One time she had decided to take a midnight trip all the way to the nearest Six Flags just to hitch rides on roller coasters and brag that she had not only ridden every ride in the park, but ridden them all without seat belts — or, for that matter, _seats._

Of course, she had done it at night (making sure to avoid mortal eyes because she and the other Nightmare Children were still very human in the visibility/audibility/permeability aspect of it) so the feat was shared only with the disbelieving Nightmare Children and the disapproving Nightmare King. Boy, had he chewed her out for that one.

"Just because you are immune to the fear of danger and ninety-nine percent invincible to physical harm doesn't mean you can go gallivanting off to some theme park without a moment's notice and go ape-shit on flipping roller coasters!" Here Pitch had slipped into what you might call the "angry parent tone" and had even gone so far as to cuss his adoptive daughter out.

To which she had replied in a quite whiny tone, "BUT IT WAS _FUUUUUUUN!" _She knew it would tick her dad off royally and that he would get so mad that he would stomp off to brood in his room the rest of the night; it had happened before. Danger was certainly the _only _Nightmare Child who Pitch allowed to poke fun at him, but he knew that if she let the others know about half of her exchanges with him, he would probably lose complete hold on them. Not that she would. Oh no, Danger was having too much fun to let one of her other stuck-up siblings muscle in on one of her only joys in life.

Pitch had gone a murky shade of reddish-grey at the F-word and he was obviously trying to keep his cool. Danger's constant flow of "It was so awesome!" and "You won't believe how fast I flew when I jumped off the big loop-de-loopy one!" and "I can't wait to do that again!" wasn't helping.

After that last one, Pitch felt his blood pressure go through the roof. "YOU CAN'T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN?!" he bellowed.

The girl wasn't even fazed. "Well, _yeah!" _Danger rolled her eyes and replied in her best dim-witted teenager voice, even though at the time she was only ten years old.

"WELL YEAH _NOTHING!" _Pitch thundered, causing all underground animals within a three-mile radius to run and hide in their burrows. "YOU, YOUNG LADY, WILL NOT BE GOING TO ANY AMUSEMENT PARK EVER _AGAIN! _IN FACT, YOU WILL NOT BE LEAVING THE _LAIR _FOR THE NEXT _THREE MONTHS!"_

Those words sparked an idea in Danger's mischievous mind and, against her siblings' wishes and to her father's utter infuriation, she continued to do crazy stunts similar to the Six Flags incident. Actually, that would be an understatement. As the years went by and she progressed from preteen to teen, she got _worse._

She went down Niagara Falls in a barrel and came home with both arms in slings and a mad grin on her face. She ziplined across the Grand Canyon and returned with an awesome video to put on her secret blog (appropriately named _Danger's My First Name _and the biggest hit for the mortal daredevil community since bungee cords). She once broke into and out of Buckingham Palace and came back with the queen's best bra tied around her head as a trophy. She had skateboarded on national monuments, climbed Mount Everest and sledded down the other side, eaten public middle school lunches — bags and metal lunchboxes and all or so she claimed — bungee jumped off the Empire State Building, and done pretty much every other dangerous feat that the mortal (or immortal) mind could think of.

And she had survived every one of them. _How, _now that was a complete mystery. She often came back with a few bruises and broken bones and, on one memorable occasion with half of her head shaved, but she always had that wicked smile on her face and no one had ever tried to stop her. She was a daredevil, to say the least, and the weirdest thing was…she enjoyed it more than anything!

That being said, Pitch was seriously distraught when he discovered she was missing and had taken his third-best Nightmare. It wasn't a mystery as to where she had gone.

"I swear," he muttered, sinking into his black throne and rubbing his temples furiously, "that girl is responsible for almost every single headache I have had since I took those children. She's more annoying than _Unknown!"_

Still, he had to hand it to the girl. She was resourceful and had slipped out of the lair unnoticed. That was quite a feat. Then Pitch sighed. What was he _thinking?! Praising _the girl after she had disobeyed him?!

_Well, she didn't really disobey me, _he mused sourly. _I never actually told them not to go, did I?_

"Shut up," he scolded himself aloud. Honestly, he would rather have a repeat of the Buckingham Palace incident than having her get hurt or captured trying to rescue her sibling. "It's that damn morality streak!" he muttered. "She's too — too…" Pitch couldn't say the word, but he knew it in his heart. _She's too damn human._

It was true. Danger was the most stubborn and the most reckless and frankly the most _bone-headed _of the children. She never thought through things, she just went and did them. She never thought about the things she did and never cared about the consequences. In that way, she was definitely human, but it was when she spontaneously ran off like this that she showed her spirit side. Her rebellious side. The side that made him think of himself at a different time in his life.

XXXXXXXXX

While Pitch was having his long TV sitcom moment, Danger was trying to figure out how to get herself into the North Pole undetected.

Though she was quite annoyed with Unknown for ruining the siege, getting her sister kidnapped, interrupting her fight with the warrior bunny, et cetera, she had to silently thank him for several things. One, giving her a chance to put her life on the line again — it was just so fun! — and two, leaving the loopholes in the magical barriers open. Otherwise it would have been much too hard, even for her. So while her father had been mentally moaning about how her breaking and entering skills were getting _too _good, it hadn't been her doing at all! All she had done was sneak out.

That wasn't to say she was a _bad _sneak. She was actually one of the best. The problem was that she got easily distracted. Not only was she a teenager, but she also had ADHD — something her father had despaired of on multiple occasions — and partial short-term memory loss. Now, anyone who knows anything about these two disorders (and if you're anything like me you _will _know, seeing as I have mild cases of both) knows when one acts up, the other is sure to follow.

She had gotten as far as the big window in the main workshops before something shiny caught her eye, literally. It was a sleek black paintball gun resting on a worktable, similar to one of those which the elves had been using in the battle, except larger. No one was around because the Yetis and elves were somewhat preoccupied with cleaning up the post-battle mess and caring for the injured.

Danger tried to resist. She really did, but the shining, polished barrel began to call her name. _Daaanger, Daaaaanger!_

Paintball guns had been banned from the lair, for obvious reasons. And because Danger liked pretty much anything that was banned, she had an insatiable love for guns. Any kind of gun — paintball guns, BB guns, handguns, shotguns, rifles, machine guns, Nerf guns, squirt guns, and especially the nice, old fashioned _Gatling_ guns! She loved the kick when they shot and the boom of the bullet igniting the target…it was almost inconceivable that she _wouldn't_ like them!

So before she could restrain herself or remember what her task was, Danger darted out into the open and snatched the paintball gun from the table. A maniacal grin spread across her dark face as she held it and her eyes flickered with that mad violet glow of glee.

In the back of her mind she knew that she had a job at hand, but that was almost completely pushed aside in her mind as the excitement made her fingers buzz and her mind race with the possibilities. The paintball gun was in her hands; there was no going back now until she satisfied that excitement. She had to _shoot_ something. Her sharp eyes focused on a table of little red toy robots, which for some unexplainable reason were the only thing in the Pole that were still immaculately stacked after the battle. Perfect. That inane grin on her face grew ever wider and a little giggle began to rise in her throat as she lifted the gun, looked through the scope, aimed, and set her finger on the trigger —

But the shot would never be fired for at that moment, a large, strong paw yanked her up by the hood of her zip-up sweatshirt.

"What the bloody hell d'you think you're doing here?" demanded an Australian-accented voice.

Before she could even focus on the identity of her attacker, Danger kicked out with her Converse-clad feet and used her momentum to flip in the air, landing lithely and drawing her red-bladed knives. She lunged towards a somewhat surprised Bunnymund and he only had a second to whip out his boomerangs and parry her knife strikes.

They were meant to be used for throwing, but one could fight with them too. Unfortunately for Danger, the Pooka was a master at both.

When Danger attempted a roundhouse swing with the knife in her left hand, like it was a sword instead of just a five-inch blade, Bunny caught it with his boomerang and twisted his wrist so that it pushed Danger's hand back, forcing her to drop the knife. Now she was left with just one knife and was caught somewhat off guard by the speed and ease that the Pooka had accomplished in disarming her. This moment of distraction was enough for Bunny to lunge forward, wrest the other knife from her hand, grab her long braid of black hair, twist the girl around, and hold the blade to her neck.

_"__Danger," _snarled Bunny contemptuously. It wasn't like they had stopped and exchanged formal introductions, but it was pretty obvious. The hair, the face, and that _highly disturbing _glow in those maniacal violet eyes. There was nothing sane or normal in those eyes. Bunny saw no fear, surprise, defeat, or sadness in them. Just that insane light that made shivers trickle down his spine. Even though there was a very pissed-off Pooka holding her under a knife, the corners of her lips were tilted up in a grin.

"What are you smiling at?" snapped Bunny. He was really unnerved by how calm she seemed. It freaked him out!

"There's a lot ya don't know about me," she sang cheerfully before she twisted out of his grasp and yanked her braid out of his hand (paw?). "First and most importantly, I _never_ play fair."

Bunny gasped when he felt the knife blade slide across her skin. He hadn't actually meant to _hurt _her, all he was doing was making sure she wouldn't escape! _Well, you see how _that _turned out,_ he thought to himself angrily as the escaped Danger turned to face him with her other knife in hand. His eyes automatically zeroed in on her neck and he felt his jaw drop when he saw that the blade hadn't even cut her skin! No blood had been drawn and she was still wearing her insane grin.

"The curse of the Styx is a real advantage sometimes," she remarked brightly as she charged Bunny again. "You should consider it!"

Bunny cursed. He sidestepped as Danger ran towards him, then hooked his legs around to trip her. She went sprawling, but she turned the sprawl into something of a mid-air somersault and was on her feet in the space of a second. Exactly as Bunny had hoped. When she spun around with her remaining knife at the ready, he grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder so suddenly and with so much force that her weapon flew out of her hands.

"HEY!" she shouted, kicking her feet and not hitting anything. "That's so not cool! Let me go so that I can fight you fairly!"

She herself did not play fairly, but she expected others to? That made no sense. Bunny sighed and drew his boomerang.

"Yeah, that's right!" she grumbled. "Now lemme — " She was promptly cut off when Bunny reached up and none-too-gently thwacked her on the back of the head with his boomerang, then he let her slide down and into his arms, bridal-style.

"Shut it," he admonished.

Danger was still awake, albeit in a state of blurry semiconsciousness, when she slid down into the giant rabbit's arms, and Bunny smiled in satisfaction when he saw those unnerving violet eyes cross. Of course, this satisfaction evaporated when he heard her voice again. "Hehe…fuzzy bunny!" she giggled, not even trying to fight the oncoming unconsciousness before she went out completely cold.

Bunny just stood there for a second with Danger in his arms, gazing down at her face and trying to think of what to do. Even while unconscious she had a sort of reckless air about her, like she would bolt awake at any second and scare the living daylights out of him. It was something that he hadn't seen much of since North's younger days, back when he was that devious, fearless bandit king who required adult supervision whenever he entered a room containing sharp objects. They had the same aura of pig-headed disregard for themselves and North still actually retained some of that power, though it only showed itself when he was particularly excited.

"Did you just almost get owned by a girl?"

Bunny's head shot up and he saw Jack, sitting casually on a worktable nearby with his staff over his shoulder. The Pooka rolled his eyes. "No," he replied sourly, turning his back to the winter spirit.

"Oh," said Jack sarcastically, not trying to hide the grin as he hopped off the table and flew up and over Bunny, coming to land right in front of him. "Because it looked an awful lot like she _escaped _from you with her awesome 'physical invulnerability'. And at first you looked really surprised, but no. That must have been a trick of the light. Sure. She _didn't _almost own you."

"Stop trying to use modern slang," sniffed Bunny indignantly, avoiding the subject. "It just makes ya sound ridiculous. Now will ya call the other Guardians? Tell 'em we've got another one."

Jack stood straight and saluted crisply. "Will do, General Fuzzy," he replied before making a speedy exit.

_"__HEY!" _Bunny snapped as the laughing winter spirit sped away. Then he looked down sharply at the girl in his arms. She was still in dreamland. Good. Then he shook his head and furrowed his brow. Why on earth should he care? The girl was creepy and, more importantly, she tried to kill him! Why should he feel anything for her but disgust and hatred?

And yet…when he looked down at the Nightmare Child in his arms he couldn't keep his stern expression from softening. She looked so much like just a regular kid, just another teen exhausted from a long night of staying up and fooling around with friends, except that her eyes were still moving beneath the closed lids and her lips moved faintly even though she said nothing. Either she was faking unconsciousness and plotting his downfall, or she was having a dream. Or a nightmare, more likely.

Apparently it was the latter because just then, she winced and burrowed her head into his chest. Bunny flinched and almost dropped her, but he kept his cool and started off in a brisk jog towards Cell One. The more he walked, the farther Danger's head snuggled into his furry chest. The hints of a smile — a true, contented smile, not the nearly insane one of battle — even twitched at the corners of her lips.

_Oh joy, _he thought. _I've got a fan._

XXXXXXXXX

Tempest was sulking in her cell when Danger was carted in. She had been sulking for several (dozen) reasons, but the worst of them was that North had invented something new, and it wasn't a toy. No, this new invention was even more annoying than that little doll that said "Mama!", which was pretty annoying in itself. The source of her irritation was a kind of magical shackle that prevented her from using any of her powers.

From the outside, it looked like a piece of metal fashioned into a smooth ring and placed around her neck like a collar. Unlike a regular metal collar however, the ring wasn't too heavy or clunky, weighing almost nothing and actually quite cool and comfortable on the skin. Still, it was extremely annoying and rather humiliating to wear, and that blasted Frost kid had popped in on her to make fun several times since North had put the thing on her. The ancient warrior-wizard had had to use the dreamsand — that hated substance — to keep her in stasis and she hadn't done it willingly, but the deluge of dreamsand had been too powerful and she'd woken up with that thing around her neck and a really dry mouth.

But on the bright side — at least for her — the collar did not restrict her from cussing out and/or sending winter spirits very bad gestures, and Frost had left with a damaged ego and a request to North to work on annexing a feature that actually _did _prevent her from doing anything else pride-damaging. North told Jack that if she was being rude, she probably had a reason. So the Guardians had left her alone after that.

For about two hours.

Then Bunnymund came storming down the hallway in all his furry Australian glory, holding a girl in his arms. Tempest groaned when she recognized the paint-splattered Converse, ripped skinny jeans, red hoodie, ridiculously long black braid, and t-shirt with the radioactive symbol emblazoned on it. A similar collar had been clipped around the girl's neck.

She facepalmed. She had bet herself that it would be at least three hours until someone had the audacity or the stupidity to come for her. She had been off by at least an hour. "Danger!" she groaned.

The Guardians and the Yeti sentries stood watch and kept their weapons up as Bunny carefully unlocked the cell door, opened it, shoved the still-unconscious Danger into the cell, and slammed the door shut. Tempest just stared at them, somewhat amused. "What, did you think I was going to run or something?" From the look on Bunny's face, that was exactly what he had been thinking. "With no way to fly out of this place and half the strength I came with?" The Guardians retained their stony expressions and Tempest smirked. "Morons."

They all exchanged glances. "She's got a point," commented Jack.

"Shut it, Frostbite," Bunny growled irritably.

"Hey, I'm on your side," Jack said, raising his hands and taking a step back. "It isn't my fault you got owned by — "

"I said _shut it!" _Bunny roared, rounding on Jack.

Tempest would have loved to watch the show, especially when Tooth started yelling at Bunny, but she had other things to think about. She glanced at Danger's limp form and couldn't help the smirk that crawled up her lips. Her sister's head had tipped over and now she was lying limply on her side like a rag doll that had initially been propped up into a sitting position but was a bit too top-heavy to stay that way. In addition, her jaw had unconsciously fallen open. Tempest rolled her eyes. Her sister was such a _human. _Always joking and, even when she was asleep, the center of attention.

"Aren't you going to help her up or something?" asked Bunny, jolting her out of her musings.

Tempest blew a raspberry and laughed. "No. Why in darkness would I do that?"

"Because it's the good thing to do," replied the Pooka with one eyebrow raised. Tempest felt the side of her that was like her sister — the very small human side of her — surface for an instant as she wondered why, and more importantly _how,_ the rabbit had eyebrows. Seriously, he was covered in fur! How the heck _did _he have eyebrows? Just like Jack's dark brows versus his white hair…how did that work? Funny thing, those brows were. Then Tempest realized she was staring and her eyes traveled down to meet his. What was she coming to?!

Tempest and Bunny had a short staredown, neither of them ever breaking eye contact. "Do I look good in _any _way to you?" she asked, her gaze flicking away from Bunny to travel around the room. None of the Guardians would meet her eyes except, surprisingly, Jack. His piercing sapphire eyes stayed glued on her for what felt like an hour, but was really five seconds, then she looked away and he blushed. "Any of you?"

"Uh, yeah!" Jack snickered, without thinking. Everyone looked at him quizzically, loathingly, or awkwardly. His pale face started creeping with more blush and he stammered as he realized _whoops_, "I — I mean, um, you look good as in, um, _physically _good; as in yeah your makeup held up — but not good, like, _good _good! As in kind, benevolent, _caring — " _Okay, now he was just trying to mess with her. Partly. Barely. Okay, okay, maybe he was babbling to try to save himself, but he was really just digging a deeper hole.

(Call it "twoo wuv", call it overreacting hormones after three hundred years without talking to a girl his age, call it whatever you want, but later he'd deny it all.)

"We get the picture, Jack," said Tooth tightly. She rolled her eyes. "Teenagers these days, ye gods…"

North snorted behind his hand and looked away when Tooth shot him a very effective death glare. Sandy made an image of a heart with an arrow through it and held both thumbs up.

Tempest fake gagged and made her most disgusted face. "Uh, as _if!"_

"Oh yeah, _you're _the disgusted one. What, are you too _'out of my league'?" _Jack made sarcastic air quotes with his fingers. "Yeah right. If this was high school, I wouldn't even _look _at you when you begged me to go to the dance with you."

She stared at him with a weird look on her face before saying slowly, "That is _literally _the dumbest insult I've ever heard, and I live with Judgment for darkness's sake."

Jack snorted. "Hey, you're the one who called me _Ice-for-Brains. _Oh yeah, so clever."

If she'd been a dog, her hackles would have gone right up. "It was on the spur of the moment! I could think of a _lot _better puns if I had time!"

"Oh please. They're not even puns. But hey, if you say you can do it, go right ahead."

"Well, I never — "

"Yeah you did. Now shoot."

She got this look on her face like she was trying to swallow a whole gumball and was really mad at it. Meanwhile, the other four Guardians were nearly speechless.

"Should…should we do something?" Bunny hissed to North, who just shrugged helplessly. Sandy shook his head and put his finger over his mouth.

"Sandy's right, guys. I kinda want to see how this turns out," whispered Tooth.

So they all fell silent and turned their eyes back to the girl in the cell, who was still furiously trying to think of a good nickname for Jack.

Finally Tempest forced out rather weakly, trying to sound strong, "Frosty the Snowman."

There was a cold silence, and then Jack started…laughing. He laughed and laughed and laughed like he would never stop. "That's — that's the _best _you can do?" he choked on his own chortles. "Dang, Thunder Butt, step up your game!"

"You already used Thunder Butt," spat the Nightmare girl. She added under her breath, but loud enough for him to hear, "Jackass."

Tooth let out a very interesting noise that was half gasp, half snort. Sandy clapped his hands over his mouth and a huge bubbly sign that said _PUN! _popped over his head.

"Excuse me," Jack scoffed, pretending not to be offended.

"What's the matter, Elsa? My game too tough for you? Why don't you just…" (and here she grinned an evil grin that put all other grins to shame)

"…_let it go?"_

Jack understood the reference. He didn't like it. "No way, you little…son of a Pitch."

Which at first would have worked, at least if Tempest was a guy. She caught it, and tutted condescendingly.

"Already getting your facts mixed up, Frostitute."

His eyes narrowed. "Pesty."

"Frozone."

"Low-watt — "

"Below zero — "

"CUMULONIMBUS!"

Tempest gasped as if he had just dissed her mother, her mouth open and eyes wide. "How _dare _you — " Then the shocked expression turned into a glare and she practically threw herself at the prison bars, clawing the air and shrieking like a wild animal. "GET BACK HERE YOU INSOLENT, COWARDLY, STUPID, IMPUDENT M — "

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Jack scrambled back, nearly crashing into Bunny who, like the other Guardians, didn't seem to know what to do. "Holy crap, wouldja just _chill?! _It was just a freaking joke, that's all…"

"Hey, hey! Calm down, you two!" Bunny finally stepped between the two elementals, scowling intensely.

"He called me fat!" Tempest growled, never taking her glare off the winter spirit.

Jack waved his hands in the air, clearly exasperated. "I also said you were pretty. Look, now it's even."

_"__You — !"_ The girl was _literally _foaming at the mouth. Her breath caught in her throat and she almost choked, so she took a deep, slow breath and turned away from everyone as she tried to calm herself. Her fists were still clenched and her shoulders shook.

"She's _crying?" _Jack muttered, half annoyed and half appalled with himself. "What — what did I do — "

"I'm not crying, d-bag," Tempest spat.

"Uh, excuse me — " he tried to object, but North stopped him.

"Jack, don't," he said, his voice very low.

Promptly, Jack closed his mouth. He knew better than to argue with North — not that he ever had, but he'd heard of the brawls Bunny and North had been in so often when they were younger spirits. However he felt like he should at least protest at the wizard's next words:

"Apologize to her."

"WHAT?!" was the first thing to fly out of his mouth. The very thought was repulsive to him. _Apologize _to the daughter of Pitch, who had _clearly_ started the argument? "Why?! She deserves it — and — and I was being _nice! _Why'd I have to apologize for being nice?!"

"'Nice' is open to translating," North replied sternly, folding his arms in just the right way for the _Nice_ and _Naughty _tattoos to look Jack in the eye. "Now sorry. Tell her."

Jack sighed melodramatically and said it. "I'm sorry for telling you that you're pretty. I didn't mean it."

Tooth punched him on the shoulder. Jack pretended that it didn't hurt and made a mental note to check for a bruise later, when no one else was watching.

"Okay, okay, jeez. Fine. I'm sorry for telling the truth and saying that I don't have a crush on you. To set the record straight, I don't. Thank Moon for that."

Tooth punched him again, but Tempest seemed to accept it. She actually stopped glaring at Jack and instead turned away.

"Okay?" Bunny coughed to get their attention. "Now that we're all happy, can we please do something about that crazy imp lying on the floor? I dunno, but that don't look comfortable."

Then he gulped when Tempest's eyes were drawn to him. She wasn't mad anymore — instead, this was something like _curiosity._

She peered at him with those intent violet-blue eyes for a very long time and, after shooting Jack a nasty smile, said slowly, "Hey, speaking of crushes — "

"I DO _NOT _HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU!" roared Jack, but everyone ignored him.

" — why does it seem like you really care about the well-being of my good sister Danger here?" Tempest finished.

Bunny's green eyes bulged and he felt his mouth go slack. "Uh…um…no! No, it's _not _what it sounds like! I do NOT like Dang…ger."

His denial petered away in his throat as Tempest shook her head and clicked her tongue. "Shameful. Absolutely shameful, and this is coming from someone who lives down the hall from Shame personified. The Guardians of Childhood are lying to a child."

"Child?!" repeated North incredulously, staring at the cynical prisoner. "Girl, you are no more child than I am elf!"

"Under eighteen," Tempest replied crisply without hesitation. "Still a legal minor. So screw you." She was glad to see North's face redden and let a full smirk scrawl across her face.

Then she caught the gaze of one of the Guardians and her good mood was shaken slightly. Toothiana's buzzing wings had slowed their speed slightly as she watched her intently and, for the first time, Tempest was creeped out by one of the Guardians. _Oh please, _she sniffed inwardly. _I'M supposed to be the one to creep people out, not the other way around!_

The other Guardians went silent when they saw the quizzical look on the bird woman's face. "Is there something…wrong?" she asked hesitantly.

The others gave the fairy an unsure look. "What could possibly be wrong with me?" asked Tempest with a completely straight face.

Tooth cocked her head as a smile creased her mouth. She resisted the urge to say _plenty_, and instead said, "All of a sudden you're so…peppy."

"PEPPY?!" spluttered Tempest indignantly. "I am not _PEPPY!"_

"All right, all right, maybe that's the wrong word for it," amended Tooth hastily, lest she suffer the verbal wrath of Tempest — the girl knew a surprising array of rather colorful words that she could summon at the drop of a hat. "Maybe…energetic? Talkative? Hyperactive? _Non-hateful of us?"_

The Guardians murmured assent and Tempest considered this. All traces of the devious, heartless assassin from the battle were gone and she had to admit, the banter made her feel more alive than she had in _ages. _"Small spaces and bright lights get to my brain," she dismissed, waving her hand and turning away so that the Guardians wouldn't see her face. She knew it was slightly pink. "Especially the confinement part of it. I'm an element. I like being free. If I'm locked up, I tend to go a bit nutty. That's probably what's going on now."

"But if you like being free," interjected Jack, "then why do you work for Pitch?"

No one really knew where this came from. Tempest, when she heard it, whirled around. The Guardians stared at Tempest. Tempest stared at Jack. Jack didn't back down. Danger yawned something incomprehensible. Everyone ignored Danger.

"Because he's my father," Tempest replied after some thought and confusion. "He brought me and my siblings up, loved us, cared for us. Okay, sure, maybe his disciplinary methods are a bit…uh…_over the top,_ but whatever, you know? What do you expect from a guy who's lived alone for thousands of years? He gave us a home, and all he asked in return is that we made him proud. So we did." She paused and glared up at the Guardians. "Or, at least, we tried."

"And look how that turned out," grumbled Danger blearily, shaking her head and sitting up.

"Aww, look who's awake, _lover bunny," _cooed Jack into Bunnymund's ear.

"Ah, just shaddup," hissed Bunny irritably. He was sick and tired of people, namely Jack and Tempest, teasing him about holding Danger! She was a vicious warrior who had almost killed him _twice!_

Danger seemed two hundred percent more disgusted with this than Bunny was. "Wait — _WHAT?!"_ she squealed in a voice that could break glass, then turned the panic in her eyes into a glare that she directed towards Tempest. "Em, _what exactly did you say?!"_

Tempest held her hands up in surrender. "Hey…don't kill the messenger for delivering the message."

Danger cocked her head and frowned as she tried to decipher the meaning of this, and then her eyes were drawn to a very irritated Pooka as he stormed off with his ears slicked back against his head. Tooth giggled and the two girls in the cell blinked.

"What's so funny?" asked Jack, obviously thinking along the same lines as the two.

"Oh, it's just that…" Tooth let out a very unladylike snort. "Bunny's ears were twitching like crazy."

"So? He's a twitchy bunny," said Jack with a completely straight face. "His ears _always _twitch."

"Not at that angle, though," replied Tooth deviously, rubbing her hands together with glee. "When they twitch at _that _angle…he's lovestruck and embarrassed about it."

"Oh," Jack replied. He did a double take. "Wait, how do you know?"

Tooth's evil smile faltered and North and Sandy grinned. "Oh, um, ah…"

Tempest sighed and leaned against the wall of Cell One, examining her nails and frowning when she saw that the dark blue polish was chipping off. She'd have to redo them whenever she got out of this mess. "What a beautiful TV sitcom moment. I almost wish I wasn't stuck in this cell. If I wasn't, I'd give you all a big hug." Sarcasm dripped from every word.

"See what I mean?" Tooth hissed, gesturing to the girl in the cell. Tempest, that is. Then she leaned in to whisper to Jack. "She's changed in the few hours she's been in here."

Jack nodded and stared at Tempest through the bars of the cell. It was true. She was certainly still the surly, rude teenager she had come in as, but they were beginning to see a different side of her. The cocky side that Tempest herself had only ever shown when she was practicing and in her only battle.

"Boy, I wish Shame were here," she remarked offhandedly, glancing at Danger.

Danger's dark chocolate-colored cheeks looked a bit reddish, and her eyes darted here and there incessantly. "Why…?"

"She's got something of a love-o-meter up there in that twisted mind of hers," Tempest explained to her sister and the amused Guardians. "You'd know that if you weren't always running off to skateboard down the Saint Louis Arc and whatever you do." The other Guardians shared a confused look. Did Danger actually…? "And she'd be able to read you like an open book, Ice Brain," Tempest added, giving Jack a sly wink.

"WHAT?" spluttered "Ice Brain", more confused by the wink than the words spoken. "But — but why me?"

Tempest stayed silent for a long time as she found sudden interest in the floor. Then, when she finally raised her head to regard the youngest Guardian, they saw that she was giving him a look of cold, undisguised hatred.

"Because," she said slowly and quietly, almost too quietly, "I want to know."

There was a stone cold silence, during which the average temperature of the room dropped at least fifty degrees and everyone's breath hung misty in the air. Tempest continued to stare at Jack and Jack continued to stare at her. Exhaling slowly, Sandy tapped North's leg. The big man read the silent message in the little man's golden eyes, nodded, and turned to leave. "Jack, let's go," he said gruffly.

Begrudgingly, Jack broke the gaze and followed Sandy North, and Tooth.

He didn't look back, but he could feel Tempest's eyes watching him until the moment the doors closed behind him.

XXXXXXXXX

Once the doors were shut and they were alone, Danger turned to high five her sister. "Nice one, sis!" she laughed, but Tempest was apparently not in the mood. She turned away and faced the wall, a habit more suited for Solitude than Tempest.

"Fine," Danger huffed, folding her arms and flopping her lanky legs on the ground. "Be like that."

The sisters were quiet until the smaller girl added, "Though I must say…if Dad finds out about your developing crush on same guy he spent like _ten years _training you to kill, he is _not_ going to be happy."

"I know," Tempest whispered.

XXXXXXXXX

Down in Pennsylvania, the sun was rising and the Nightmare Children were fast asleep in their beds.

Well, most of them.

The youngest stood alone behind the closed doors of the training room, bare-chested and barefoot. It was very quiet when everyone was asleep. He liked the silence; it reminded him that there was no one left to judge him.

He shook his head, ignoring the white feathers that fell in his eyes. No, he couldn't just sit and be poetic anymore. He had to do this. If he was going to be a hero, he had to train like one.

He glanced down to the light steel staff in his hand, then up at the rack of weapons on the wall. Shaking his head again, he set the staff against the wall and turned to the other weapons. Swords, axes, bows, spears…

He thought back to the fight with Jack. _Speed, _he said to himself. _I'm not fast enough. I…I have to be fast, and sly, and cunning._

He took a throwing knife. It was balanced in the handle and in the blade to give it a spin, though it felt strange and unbalanced in his hand.

The targets, against the opposite wall, seemed to be watching him as he stood with the knife in his hand. Mocking him, daring him to go ahead. He tried to visualize Danger's expert tosses, but for some reason as he brought his arm up in the same way it didn't seem to feel as easy as it should have.

A sudden wave of anger and frustration overcame him and, without thinking about form or grace or not rushing the throw, he hurled the knife at the closest target with all the strength he could muster. He imagined it flying forward in a whirlwind of silver, glinting in the dim light before slamming home in the center of the target. He imagined being proud of something he'd done. He'd had a taste before, with Tempest's smile, with Solitude's "Nice job, kid" — and he wanted it again so badly that if all the pride was for was a knife in a target, then he'd be happier than anything.

But the knife's spin wasn't straight and it bounced on the floor, chipping a small mark in the rock ten feet away from where he stood.

The frustration began to rise again and to keep it down, he took another knife, gripped it hard enough to turn his knuckles five shades whiter, and ran towards the targets. A part of him wanted to let out a battle cry, but he knew that if he did it would wake his siblings and they'd be onto him like lionesses onto a crippled gazelle. So instead he clenched his teeth and gripped the knife tighter and imagined the fearsome, bloodthirsty howl ripping itself from his mouth as he drew back his arm and let the knife fly into the heart of an enemy…

…before watching it hit the wall five feet to the right of the target and clatter uselessly on the ground.

Tears began to prickle in his eyes and he blinked rapidly to clear them. _No. _If he was training to be a hero, he had to act like one. Warriors and heroes didn't cry.

_What would a warrior do?_

The monkey bars. Those were the closest. He threw himself at them without a second thought, clambering to the top rungs before even considering what he was doing. Sweat made his hands clammy as he momentarily glanced down and realized how high up he was and how unstable these thin metal bars were, but he grit his teeth, wiped his hands on his shorts, and grabbed the first rung.

It didn't end well. He'd only made it to the third one before his fingers started to slip, and before he knew it he was lying on his back atop a next-to-useless foam mat with the wind completely knocked out of him.

The climbing wall was next. He'd done it before, but it had been a long time ago and with one of the harnesses that everyone had used at one point or another but they all now said were for wimps.

That, too, ended with him on his back and gasping like a fish out of water.

Okay, okay, well at least he could lift weights. Everyone lifted weights. He wrapped his fingers around a twenty-pound, sure that he could at least pump that a few times, and heaved it up above his head with all his might.

Wrong. The weight dragged him down and he went head-over-heels, ending up on his back.

He tried swords. He tried spears. He tried archery. He tried javelins. He tried the benchpress. He tried the chin-up bar. He even tried that crazy obstacle challenge Solitude and the girls had constructed entirely out of tires and braided yarn. For darkness's sake, he even went on the treadmill and pressed the speed up so fast that he could only run for three seconds before flying off and crashing into the mattresses that someone had put up behind the treadmill just for the sake of whatever moron had the lack of brains to do what he'd just done.

He even went after the punching bag with what he was sure was Loss's signature side kick and landed a nice one, only for the bag to swing back at him, slam into his body, and send him to the ground for the umpteenth time that day.

After that last one in particular, he couldn't get up. He just lay there on the ancient mats, unsure whether or not the sweat he smelled was necessarily his own or if some of it came from the mat's numerous users over the years. It was kind of disgusting, though he was so tired that falling asleep right there actually didn't seem too bad of a prospect if you ignored the fact that then his siblings might find him, which would mean certain humiliation.

And that was the very thing he was trying to avoid.

The thought gave him enough energy to push himself up and stand to his feet, even as painful and exhausting as it was. The adrenaline of before was gone now, leaving only the fatigue behind. His hair stuck to his forehead, but when he lifted his hand to wipe it away he could barely hold up his arm. Tears of frustration joined with the sweat, trailing down his cheeks together. But he couldn't wipe them away.

Weakness.

He imagined being proud of something he'd done, remembered the small slice of what it felt like. He looked back to the smile on Tempest's face when he came back with the Pole's magical portals wide open, the way she'd nodded slightly afterwards as if saying _Maybe he's not such a nothing as we all thought._

He hadn't needed weapons, size, speed or strength to bring the smile. All it had been was a little magic, some invisibility and a heck of a lot of luck.

He imagined that smile on her face again, maybe even a few words of praise. Applause from his other siblings, shadows and cowardly Guardians bowing before him. And most of all, he imagined the look on Father's face — pride. Pride _in him, _not in his siblings' work, not in how great they were as a team of warriors, but _in him. _The undersized weakling who could get into the Pole once, and who was going to do it again even if he didn't have strength on his side.

And those thoughts alone were enough to bring Unknown Black to his feet.

**Okay um…I didn't necessarily need to add the last part of this chapter but I literally just got this image of my baby trying to become a big strong boy and it was kind of cute. And it may or may not have something to do with his character motives later on that I didn't really see enough of — NOT Mystic's fault, by the way. She was riding off the seat of her pants and had no idea what I had in mind for the later plot points, so she couldn't really foreshadow anything. Still kinda creepy though because she seemed to hit them all unintentionally, especially in the freaking first chapter. I didn't even let them talk and she nailed their personalities without the slightest idea of what she was doing.**

**I swear sometimes Mystic, you're telepathic or something.**


	7. Attempt (The Second)

*****IMPORTANT*** IF YOU DO NOT MIND ****_SLIGHT _****ROMANCE IN THIS FIC, YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO SKIP THIS VERY LONG AUTHOR'S NOTE.**

**IF YOUR CURIOSITY IS PIQUED AS TO HOW FAR THIS SAID ROMANCE MIGHT GO, OR YOU DO MIND, PLEASE KEEP READING. IGNORE MY REPLIES TO CHIBISSIMA AND MYSTICHAWK BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE ISSUES AND THE DISCUSSION OF THIS QUADRANTAL MESS COMES IN LATER.  
IF YOU WHINE TO ME LATER ON IN THE STORY SAYING THAT YOU HATE IT, MEANING SAID VARYING LEVELS OF (OFTENTIMES KISMESISTIC) ROMANTIC TENSION IN BORING PLACES TO THE DEPTHS OF WHICH I WILL BE EXPLAINING IN THE FOLLOWING AUTHOR'S NOTE, AND YOU DIDN'T LEAVE NOW, THEN THAT'S YOUR FREAKING FAULT AND YOU CAN STICK THAT BACK DOWN YOUR BULGE-LICKING JABBER-HOLES.**

**…**

**(Less important note: I may have gotten into Homestuck lately.)**

**chibissima: ****_Exactamente, mi amiga. Increíble. Absolutamente increíble.  
_****Mystichawk: Ahaha, okay :) it still was my fault that I didn't foreshadow to their *real origins*, because tbh I had ideas of a Nightmare Queen too, but…hey, it just didn't work out that way and we were able to fix it. ^^**

**Painapple (Guest): GUYS HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THAt even though Revenge of the Ice Prince still exists on this site, ****_I HAVE NEVER VOLUNTARILY MADE CANON CHARACTERXOC A SERIOUS LEGIT THING, AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL. _****For the record the exception, the infamous (and inconceivably bad) ****_RotIP, _****was at the request of my sister and was a self-insert of HER, not me.  
So in response to your question, am I pairing any of the kids up with the Guardians, I will give a totally separate paragraph because I feel this should be addressed:**

**Let's be honest. I suck at romance and I know it. What I don't suck at is plot twists and sibling hate/love. This ain't freaking Twilight, guys. Most (read: 75-90%) of the ships will be romantically ONE-SIDED, and this is due to hormones and may or may not last (tbh I actually don't think any of them are gonna make it past that plot twist/destruction which I'm calling The Great Undoing, and Homestuckers will have a good idea of what kind of plot twist/destruction I'm hinting at).**

**It's kind of like when you're a freshman on the first day of high school and you suddenly see that supercute junior on your way to Bio for maybe two seconds and fantasize going on a date with him, defeating his evil ex girlfriends, getting married, having kids, growing old and dying together and still always loving him — but then a year passes and you still haven't said a word to him and you're kinda over it and you think your fantasies about him were childish and egocentric? Don't deny it. It happens to all of us, one way or another. And it's happening here.**

**In the case of Jack and Tempest, it is two-sided, hence the outlying 25-10%, but trust me, I've begun to hate them more than you do and the above example may apply.  
So if you want to leave, go right on ahead. Door's over there. Except that — I can't exactly leave myself, so you'll have to show yourself out. **

XXXXXXXXX

When Danger's Nightmare returned without its rider, Pitch was in the middle of a very long discussion with himself about what to do. He found that talking to himself could be rather therapeutic in times of great stress, even though some of his kids (read: one of his kids — specifically, Death) liked to mock him about it. But hopefully, they were all doing what they were supposed to be doing, which was training, and Pitch could talk to himself in peace.

"There's a thirty percent chance of her succeeding," he murmured as he paced his black room with his hands laced behind his back, deep in thought. "If she does succeed, should I reward her or give her a month in her room?" Moon, being a parent was hard.

Thankfully his decision was made right there and then when a nervous Nightmare clopped in through the doorway.

Pitch turned around when he heard the noise, preparing himself to either yell at Danger for leaving or to commend her for getting her sister back alive, when he recognized it as the mare Danger favored when she bothered riding one of the beasts. Commonly, especially when happy, Danger used her acrobatics to get around and she didn't give a damn if she kicked anyone in the face or stepped on a toe or two as she cartwheeled from room to room. Thankfully, this had only happened once and as a result Pitch had vowed never to give any of the Nightmare Children coffee ever again, _especially _Danger.

That being said, she had presumably decided to take a Nightmare with her to rescue her sister and when Pitch saw the lone mare standing with its head lowered in shame, he assumed the worst. No, he did not assume that the girl had gotten killed. That would be the second worst. He assumed the absolute worst and, in fact, correct — that Danger had gotten herself captured.

Yes, a dead Nightmare Child would be better than a captured one — to him, at least. He was fond of the children, it was true, but despite those blasted memories that kept cropping up, the corrupted, rotten, Fearling-infested heart that was his was a selfish one. He knew the more children he had, the easier it might be if one of them convinced the others — Wrath, say, or even Suffering — that they could take him and bring him down. Children were unpredictable things. Besides, the more of his children the Guardians had a hold of, the easier it would be for them to tell the Guardians lies about his plan. More correctly, the _truth _about his plan…

Pitch sighed for the umpteenth time that day. Yes, that was all very well and good, but did he have a plan after this disaster? A good portion of all of his plans had hinged on the strongest of the Nightmare Children — of which Tempest and Danger were definitely in at least the top four. True, they weren't necessarily _the best, _but the reason they were at the top of the list now was because they were the ones most willing to do what he asked of them: to train. They were the ones who best understood the importance of defeating the Guardians, and so were the ones who knew what was at stake in the years they'd been allowed to get better and, eventually, rise over the others who hadn't found it a priority to whack at things with weapons.

_Why? Why did it have to be Tempest and Danger? _he growled to himself, sinking into his throne with an exhausted sigh. Why two of his most powerful warriors? Tempest, with her ability to lead and her nearly infallible tactics; Danger, with her invincibility to external damage (except for her literal Achilles' heel, a tiny spot at the nape of her neck) and love of risk? Why couldn't it have been, say, Unknown and Judgment or someone? Those two didn't do much! He'd never seen Unknown fight and Judgment was more interested in _diplomacy _than combat anyway. Though, in the latter's case, the Nightmare Children were rather fond of him and his charismatic weirdness so it would have probably still made a difference…

Pitch turned over his several options. He could either leave the girls there at the Pole to be interrogated — this he didn't feel that badly about, because they were snarky enough to survive alone — he could send the children to rescue them, or he could head there himself. Did he have the power to do that though? Did the children? After the battle, they had hit the training room and when he had last looked in on them, all nine of them had been dealing weak blows to wooden dummies and barely raising their weapons as they fought. The only time they actually looked energetic was when they were fighting _with each other,_ which was happening with increasing frequency. They were tired, he could see that, but he knew he couldn't just leave the two girls in the hands of the enemy. Maybe another battle was what the children needed, just to keep them active. Adrenaline could wake kids up.

And so Pitch decided that this time, they were going to go full-throttle to get back his girls. No more hesitation, no more stupid plans that they should have considered long before, just brute force against those ridiculous Guardians. He stood up and crossed the room to the open door, satisfied with this plan. If he sent them all with his strongest Nightmares, they could not fail.

All of them, that is, except for Unknown. He would be staying here, under Pitch's close scrutiny. Maybe then he might be able to see what the boy's powers were, once he was away from the others' jeering. Unknown had an unwavering shyness that Pitch despaired of, almost as much as Danger's ridiculously high level of ADHD, but he allowed him to continue simply because he knew that it was just the boy's way. All of the Nightmare Children had their odd quirks and though they were annoying at times, they proved useful eventually. Yes. As soon as he could see deeper into Unknown, learned what drove him and gained his complete trust, he was sure that he would find windows of opportunities in the boy.

Because like all evil lords with plans for revenge and world domination had to be, Pitch Black was an optimist.

He made the announcement of the upcoming attack as soon as he could, to the Nightmare Children's excitement. They instantly sprang up to ready their armor and weapons, but before they could even draw blades Pitch told them that it would take a week to muster his strongest Nightmares. They all sat back down again in disgust, muttering irritably.

"Great. More waiting!" Wrath spat, offhandedly chucking a throwing ax at the wall and lodging it in the center of a perfect circle of other axes.

"I know," Pitch said, trying to take on the voice of a general to his soldiers. Surprisingly, he slipped into the role quite well. "But it will only be a little while. You are all tired from your first battle and need time to recuperate. In one week, you will all ride out to rescue your sisters." He cast a look at Unknown, who was lurking tentatively in the shadows and had raised his head at his father's words, then lowered it almost immediately when he caught his gaze.

"All of you," Pitch amended, "except Unknown and Suffering."

This was met with outbursts of rage, primarily from Wrath — surprised? — and an angry glare from Pain, Suffering's least-biggest fan. Pitch quieted them down with a wave of his hand. In truth, he didn't know why he should take pity on the tiny girl more than any of the others. He glanced at Suffering, who shrunk even smaller under his gaze.

Suffering was a sucker for wounds and physical pain, but she was also good at exaggerating it and convincing people that she was really, really hurting. A master warrior and an even more gifted actress, she was even able to deceive one of the greatest liars on the planet — Pitch Black. She took great pride in this and even greater pride in the fact that her father had no idea, but she had her reasons.

The rotund little dreammaker she had been dueling against was a surprisingly fierce adversary and during the fight Suffering actually wasn't sure if she'd make it. Then the rain of ice from Jack's staff had hit both her and her opponent, but she'd gotten it worse than anyone. The ice had ripped into her flesh and the blast had sent her flying backwards and twenty feet down to the ground, giving her a slight concussion and quite a few bruises in unfortunate places.

On the ride back to the lair, she had decided that she wasn't really one for battle. And she knew instantly that now that Tempest was in the hands of the enemy, there would be more battles. So she had taken desperate measures. One of her cuts was down her left arm and particularly deep, so when no one was looking, she braced herself against the pain and squeezed it so that more blood came out. Then she took a few globs and spread them all over her right hand even massaging it into her scalp to mimic a head wound. She felt no need to actually tear up her fighting hand, because who knew when it would really, really be necessary?

When they had gotten back to the lair, it was obvious that she was the most wounded of all of them, and it appeared that the hand she usually used to hold her whip, her right hand, had been badly cut and the mild concussion somehow blossomed to a severe one, judging by the way she was acting as she staggered about and spouted drowsy, incoherent things. (Emphasis on "acting".) So Pitch decided that Suffering was not fit for battle just yet, hence letting her stay home. No one saw the wicked smile on the girl's pockmarked face as she limped towards her room with her hand, arm, and head all bandaged up.

But little did she know that she was Pitch's last resort, his final secret weapon, if this attempt to rescue Tempest and Danger failed. It never hurt to have backup, after all.

XXXXXXXXX

After half a week of preparing and waiting, Pitch deemed the eight able-bodied Nightmare Children to be ready for another attack. He couldn't wait any longer. They had to act now!

Along with his powers, they had also been gifted with the abnormally quick healing of immortals (albeit a bit slower — the magic wasn't _that _strong) so they had all been restored to their former condition from before the first fight. All, strangely, except Suffering. Most of her smaller cuts had closed up within the first three days, but she continued to walk drunkenly and moan about how much her head hurt, and she kept complaining that she couldn't hold her whip in her cut hand — which she suspiciously kept bandaged and hidden — so he decided to keep her at the lair after all.

After two days, Pitch had summoned enough sand and fear to equip the eight Nightmare Children with eighty Nightmares. He had numbered the Nightmares specifically so that each child would have exactly ten to control and he figured that wasn't too much for his specially and vigorously trained super soldiers — ahem, _children,_ right? With this many Nightmares and his warrior-children, the Guardians didn't stand a chance.

…right?

_Wrong_.

Pitch really should've seen it. He should've _known_ something was up on the day of the battle when he saw the teenagers clambering onto their Nightmares with a sluggishness that was completely unlike them. In the first battle, they had been almost frothing at the mouth to fight. Now, they almost looked bored.

Pitch frowned and opened his mouth to call them down as they took to the air, but they were gone before he could and as he walked back into the lair to speak to Unknown, he attributed it to his waking them up early in the night. Yes. That had to be it. A few hours of riding through cold winds would wake them up.

He rubbed his hands in glee and let out a small chuckle. Those miserable Guardians would be _crushed._

He sat back in his throne and relaxed his tense muscles, once again feeling rather pleased in himself.

XXXXXXXXX

…Once again, wrong.

Unfortunately for Pitch, these eight super warriors were also _teenagers _and unknown to Pitch, these teenage super warriors weren't just suffering from the abrupt wakeup call. In fact, they had just gotten off major sugar highs and still a bit fuzzy from staying up late and partying the day before. The reason for the sugar highs would be surprising to any of them if they knew and certainly surprising to Pitch, but they didn't know so they were not surprised. But if they had, they probably would've throttled their brother.

Remember, Unknown had been present when Pitch had announced to the other Nightmare Children the news of the upcoming battle. Inconspicuous, but present nevertheless. And he'd felt an emotion that he had never felt before — the desire for revenge. Making the decision quickly before the cowering side of him could wake up and tell him that it was a stupid idea, he did something he had never even considered doing before.

It had taken him one day — eight hours, a ton of luck, a few stolen clothing articles from his sibs, and a gallon of apple cider to seal the deal. An hour after all of the others had fallen asleep and Pitch had retired to his bedchambers to do darkness knew what, Unknown slipped invisibly out of the kids' wing of the lair and out into the "stables", where his Nightmare — a scrawny little thing named Mirage that jumped at every moving shadow — was waiting. It had taken quite a few promises of apple cider to keep her quiet, but it was worth it. If Mirage betrayed him to Pitch (which he was pretty sure she wouldn't have done anyway because she liked her rider better than her creator) then he'd be in more trouble than Tempest and Danger were probably in now.

But Mirage complied. Satisfied by the promise of cider, she took him through the shadowy woods into the downtown, where the shadows were longest in the early morning light. She stopped, at his order, behind the Burgess Wal-Mart.

Unknown was wearing shoes and an old puffy winter coat stolen from Tempest's closet (okay, it _was _technically a girl's coat even though you really couldn't tell, but his regular coat, the special one that he'd worn to the Pole, still had paintball paint all over it) so he could blend in with the humans. He would have really liked to dye his hair something other than stark white, but even if he kept his hood up, bright blond hair wasn't something you could really hide from pissed-off siblings who would jump at whatever chance they had to get you in trouble. No, he'd rather be albino outside than suddenly blond inside.

He could feel his empty stomach tying itself into a knot as he shoved the black cap over his hair in a poor attempt to hide it. He kind of couldn't believe he was doing this, but alas, here he was. He was getting revenge. Sabotaging the plan so he could take over and save the day.

Unknown Black was becoming the villain.

A small, hesitant smile twitched at his lips as he thought of how proud Father would be, and with that the knot untied itself and loosened his feet.

Unknown stepped out into the open air, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started walking towards the Wal-Mart.

XXXXXXXXX

"Good morning, how are you today?"

The standard line. Said for the thousandth time in a bored tone that the cashier didn't bother to make brighter.

"Just fine, thank you."

The voice had a slight accent of something, maybe British. He couldn't remember.

"Find everything okay?"

Not that the cashier was prepared to leave his station and help the customers if they didn't. You weren't even allowed to do that.

"I guess."

The voice was young and high, almost like a girl's, though not quite. Did he care? Not really.

The cashier usually didn't even really bother looking up and smiling at the customer anymore. The same kind of people passed through here every day, none of them anything special to the jaded twenty-nine-year-old's preoccupied eyes. Chubby soccer moms with their hyperactive kids, buying standard housekeeping stuff. Middle-aged women wearing too much makeup, with more makeup in their carts alongside bags of goodies they'd rather not admit they're actually eating. Guys of all ages who forgot to do something for the wife, girlfriend, etc., usually purchasing a cheap present that only _looked _expensive.

The cashier wasn't fazed by much, though when he scanned six twelve-packs of Mountain Dew in a row, a jug of apple cider and a package of Hershey's chocolate, he may have become a little bit curious and glanced up.

The cider had given him a small clue (which was wrong by the way). There was a girl with purple hair who came around here sometimes and bought cider, and whenever she saw him working the register she checked out with him. Though her cider was usually cherry instead, apple was pretty much the same thing. They were both red, he guessed. But point was, he didn't quite know about the purple-haired girl. She constantly looked like she was either about to start screaming excitedly about something or fall asleep right there on the floor. What she'd do with a whole gallon jug of cider, chocolate and seventy-two cans of MD, the cashier was afraid to think about.

But it wasn't the girl, thankfully. Instead, it was a boy — maybe twelve, thirteen years old.

It was actually hard to tell his age, because when the cashier met the kid's eyes his stomach, for whatever reason, felt like it had a rock in it. And not even a small rock, either. Like, we're talking boulders here. There was something just…not _right _about this kid, and the cashier couldn't tell what it was for the life of him. And it terrified him.

The kid glanced slightly down, and then back up at the cashier. He realized that the kid had put cash down on the little countertop between them, and muttered an awkward "Oh, sorry" before grabbing it and counting the money. For some reason, just looking at the kid didn't feel right. He was pretty normal feature-wise for a kid his age, maybe more on the skinny side that gave the cashier a bad feeling that he didn't get always get to eat full meals three times a day, and dressed for the weather, maybe, but for some reason the cashier felt like there was something _missing _about this kid's face.

Halfway through counting, the cashier had this awkward "WAIT A SECOND" moment where he realized he'd never told the customer how much it cost. He'd been so tipped out of focus that he'd lost the lines he spoke a thousand times a day. "Uh…"

"It's exact change," said the boy. His speech was clipped in a way that did, now that the cashier was listening, sound distinctly British, yet at the same time a little off. Kind of like one of his exes, that one Japanese girl who was going to Oxford and dumped him when she found out that he still lived in his parents' basement. Yeah…the kid sounded British-Asian. But that didn't really make sense because this kid had light hair.

Light…

"Exact change?" He continued counting. Sure enough, it was the right amount — tax included — even though he'd never told the kid the cost. This had actually happened before, with a bunch of homeschool moms who liked to challenge their children to do the math themselves even though the amount would still be paid in credit. Every time the cashier saw those particular families, the kids had notepads and pencils in their hands as they furiously scribbled down the numbers and decimal points. Maybe this kid did that too even when his parents weren't here. Homeschoolers were weird, the cashier (who had dropped out of high school during his junior year) reflected moodily.

"Umm…okay," he said, coughing. "Did you want the receipt?"

"No thank you." The kid made his way towards the spinny-thing you put the groceries on and took one of the Mountain Dew cartons in both arms, struggling to put it back into the shopping cart. The cashier kind of wanted to help him, but he couldn't due to the next lady who had already packed two carts' worth of groceries onto the one moving thingy.

"Good morning, how are you today…"

Oh dear. Another one of these. This woman actually started telling him her life story, up until now when she was complaining about a lazy husband who hadn't gone out to buy and pack the things they needed for their week-long trip to Vegas or something and now their plane was leaving in like four hours and that was why she was at the store at eight a.m. and could you _please _hurry up and get that little brat out of here; he's clogging up the bagging carousel and I'm going to miss my plane and blah blah blah…

The cashier offered up an automatic "I'm sorry ma'am but each customer deserves his own time and if you would really like to help things along, you could at least assist him with his items and then he'll leave" and continued checking out items. He glanced briefly over towards the kid, who was slowly, steadily hauling the Mountain Dews into his cart. He was almost done, fortunately for the cashier because the vacationing lady looked like she was about to blow a gasket.

It was when the cashier started passing the brightly-colored plastic travel bottles that he began to figure it out. At first though, he didn't really even know what it was. It came to him like an itch — first just an annoyance, capable of being passed off as nothing. But as he kept ignoring it, it kept nagging into the back of his mind until he just couldn't bear to resist scratching it.

Skin like ash. Not just pale, but grey. Mirror eyes. _Silver, _in fact. And light feathers of hair that weren't just light — but stark white. And even everything he wore — grey, black. And only now he knew what was wrong with the kid.

He was completely devoid of color.

XXXXXXXXX

When Unknown got back to the lair, his siblings were thankfully still asleep. So he put the Dew where it belonged, sealed the deal with Mirage (the Nightmare couldn't eat apples as she had no solid teeth so she had to do with simply dunking her snakelike tongue into a bowl of apple cider and absorbing it into her sand, which Unknown let her do), returned Tempest's coat to her closet, dropped Loss's hat on the couch for no reason other than to annoy her, changed into his pyjamas and slipped into bed as if nothing had happened.

He slept until dinnertime and woke up just in time to see his plan take effect.

XXXXXXXXX

Dark was the first to find it. Thankfully, because if the wrong person had found it then they might have secretly hidden it away for themselves instead of yelling loudly, "SUGAR!" which Dark was prone to doing.

It was kind of amazing that they hadn't found it sooner because now that they were older, the Nightmare Children made their own meals, but Unknown had thought this through and realized that no one really opened the refrigerator until they had to prepare for dinner. For breakfast and supper they turned to the pantry. Therefore, whoever's turn it was to make dinner tonight would most likely be the first to find the Dews.

Since Dark made excellent grilled chicken sandwiches, he was the first to find it.

It was kind of comical, watching every Nightmare Child make a beeline towards the refrigerator and shove Dark out of the way. It was even funnier watching them come to their senses, resolve to ration it and only drink a can each tonight, then lose resolve completely and start fighting over it. Then they just made it a "whoever drinks them faster gets more" kind of deal, and began to gulp.

In their caffeine-drunkenness, none of them saw Unknown watching them from the shadows with a suspicious smile on his face.

First step, train as a hero. Second step, squish the competition.

No one knew that he had done it and for whatever reason no one thought twice about finding half a dozen cases of Mountain Dew in the fridge of the Boogeyman — who had only allowed them to consume water and regular food, except for the once-a-year parties that made up for birthdays and those horrifying episodes when Danger and Loss had stolen mochas from a Starbucks — and at the time, no one had known that they were to be attacking the next night. When they next woke up, they all had headaches and wanted to sleep them off, but their father had yanked them up out of their beds by the ankles with threads of nightmare sand and ordered them off to battle before they could protest.

When they had reached the North Pole, Pain was practically screaming a random song about goblins and Wrath, as much as he'd always liked this particular sister of his, was trying hard not to throttle her. Judgment was audibly contemplating whether the chicken or the egg came first. Solitude kept repeating "omelettes, omelettes" mostly just to annoy Judgment. Which hence caused Shame to continually yell at him to please shut up because she'd spent the short breakfast time doing her makeup and the mention of omelettes was not helping her hunger.

The fight had been, well, not much of a fight. Contrary to common belief, Sandy actually found it easier to put hyperactive children to sleep rather than the ones who were actually tired. Only a bit easier, but easier nonetheless. He could put more power into the punches without worrying about knocking them out too far, thus making them fall asleep faster and deeper.

I will spare you the details, because there aren't many. There was a lot of dodging, running, swinging of various weapons into walls for some reason, and, concerning Pain, singing about goblins, but that was pretty much it and the result was as to be expected: eight unconscious Nightmare Children, eighty Nightmares-turned-piles of golden dreamsand, four conked-out Guardians, three snoozing Mini Fairies, several dozen snoring Yetis, countless sleeping elves, and one very satisfied Sandman.

Moral of the story: never send eight sugar-hyped and sleep-deprived teens to rescue their two captive sisters from the hands of five thoroughly pissed-off immortals.

Sighing, the frazzled and slightly drained dreammaker shook his teammates awake. Or, at least, tried to. Every time he touched them they went farther into dreamland and after a while he gave up that approach. His sand was leaking out of him in the most literal sense. He could actually feel grains of sand drizzling from cracks in his skin and he took five minutes to re-harden his skin before trying to wake his teammates again.

Sandy, as we all know, used to be a star before he became a Guardian. No, not a star as in a celebrity; that came much later. In his former life, Sanderson Mansnoozie had been an adventurous star with dreams of traveling through the galaxy. In those days, stars had had immense powers and when he had been transformed into a Guardian, his powers had tripled. He became the Sandman. At first, he hadn't been able to control the element and his physical form had resembled a squat pile of golden salt.

When he had been a star, he hadn't _had _a real physical form and as a result, he was unfamiliar with how one would work. It had taken him several decades to form a human body and face and when he finally had, he had discovered that cracks would form in his skin, leaking dreamsand. This happened more and more often as he began to use his powers and over the years he had learned to toughen his skin to prevent this from happening. And it almost never did, only when he expelled a lot of energy. That battle with the girl with the curtained face — who, for some odd reason, he hadn't seen ever since — had really taken a lot out of him and he hadn't noticed he was leaking until now. He was kind of glad that all witnesses were asleep; leaking sand was pretty much on the same level of embarrassment as an open fly or an escaped booger.

When he had finished sealing all the cracks in his skin, Sandy returned to the problem at hand. He knew Jack was the lightest sleeper of the four, but he was out cold. Literally, as it were. A little icicle hung off his nose, and Wrath, whom Jack had landed on top of when they all went lights out, was coated with a thick layer of frost. The eighteen-year-old's hair, which was styled uncannily like Pitch's, was stiff with Jack's ice. Wrath wouldn't be too happy about that when he woke up, nor would he be particularly happy with the completely coincidental (though extremely suggestive) position he and Jack were in. Above their heads, a scene of little golden teenagers kicking down golden snowmen played out. The snowmen were coming to life and chasing some of the teens. It was hilarious, but Sandy didn't have the time to watch.

He did his work and smiled when Jack murmured automatically, "Just five more minutes, North…" Those were the magic words to the Sandman, so he allowed Jack to keep sleeping.

Now, who was the next lightest sleeper? He would think Tooth, her being part bird and all, so he tried waking her the same way he had tried to wake Jack: by dragging an unconscious elf over to her, putting the elf's bell by her ear (yes, she had ears; they were just super small and concealed under her feathers), and shaking it.

He was nearly thrown backwards when Tooth shot awake and spiraled into the air. " — Bicuspid at 56 Rowan — !" she yelped blearily. When she regained full control over her drowsy mental facilities she said, "Wait, where am I? Oh, hi Sandy. What…happened here?"

Sandy explained to her patiently through his sand signs and then told her his dilemma. She sighed, landed lightly on the ground next to North, and gently nudged the big man's head with her foot. "I got this. North. North, wake up."

North just kept sawing logs. His dream, candy canes, obviously, mixed with Pain's, and the two wakeful Guardians were left looking at a trio of warty golden goblins doing the can-can with candy canes. Sandy sniggered silently and Tooth giggled. "As amusing as this is," she said, "we have to wake him up somehow. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess." The fairy knelt by North's ear and whispered, "North…the elves have eaten all your cookies…"

_"Chto proiskhodit?!"_ burst North, sitting bolt upright unexpectedly and making Tooth leap back to avoid being head butted. _"Vdali ot pechen'ye!_" (Translation from Russian to English: What is happening?! Away from cookies!) Then, after a moment of confusion, his eyes cleared of that dark, flaming fury and he said in a calmer voice, "Oh, Tooth. Is you. Sorry."

Tooth smiled and said it was all right, then they got to work waking up Bunny and Jack. When the Guardian of Hope was awake, he told them about the really weird dream he had had about North measuring carrots against eggs on a scale — most likely Judgment's unconscious doing. Jack's awakening was rather different. First he tried to jump straight up from lying down, tripped over Wrath, fell flat on his face, and, as if that wasn't enough, slipped on his own ice three times before getting to his feet.

"Sandy," North admonished, "was that really necessary?"

Sandy gave him a look that said quite clearly, _Not really, but it was funny._

Jack sighed. He could appreciate a good joke. "All right, I'll admit it. That was pretty good, Sandy."

Sandy grinned widely.

"Okay," said Bunny, trying to get them back on track, "what do we do with them all?"

North shrugged. "Same as other two."

The rest of the Guardians nodded uneasily and soon they were fitting collars around the Nightmare Children's necks and carting them down to Cell One.

XXXXXXXXX

"Got any nines?" asked Tempest.

Phil sighed and handed her his three nines through the bars. She pumped her fist and set her four cards on the ground. (As we know from Jack, Yetis are quite forgiving. Even to someone who stuck them with an arrow.)

"I go again," said Tempest. "Arghbal, got any threes?"

Arghbal shook his head. "Rurgh lur." _Go fish._

Tempest took a card from the draw pile, which was outside of the barred door but easy enough to reach.

"My turn," said Danger. "Got any…what in darkness?"

The last three words were uttered when the five Guardians came in with the eight still-unconscious Nightmare Children. North was carrying Solitude over one shoulder and Dark over the other, Bunny was carrying Judgment, Jack was carrying Loss, Tooth had Death in her arms bridal-style while not looking very happy about it, and several Yetis were carrying the rest. (Wrath's face still hadn't unfrozen from the force of a sleeping Jack landing on top of him.)

"I second that question," said Bunny slowly, looking at the strange scene.

"Are you guys playing…Go Fish?" asked Jack skeptically, one dark eyebrow raised.

Danger shrugged. "Well, _yeah,_" she replied. The Guardians gave her weird looks and she replied with her signature pouty lip. "Why not?"

_"__I _wanted to play Trash, but that doesn't work very well through prison bars," put in Tempest. Then she glanced at the kids who were obviously her siblings and stood, folding her arms and giving the boy slung over North's shoulder a cold look. "So, what's Dad done _now?"_

Before North could answer — and it was a very good thing that he was interrupted because he had no idea what he was going to say — the long-haired boy whom North had slung over his shoulder woke up. "…whuzzah…?" he spluttered, raising his head and trying to take in his new surroundings like he had been trained, but the combined aftereffects of the caffeine and dreamsand weren't helping. "Hey! Let me go!" He started to flail and kick, which was no use seeing as North was at least twice his size and the smaller male had little to no real muscles. Though Solitude was pretty good with the light spear he carried, playing video games and watching TV all day did little to nothing for one's battle prowess.

"Sol!" Tempest barked. "Knock it off! It's no use."

"Tempest! Danger!" yelped Solitude. "Thank darkness, you're alive! We'll get out of this, I promise!"

"We can _hear_ you," said North, somewhat annoyed.

"Shut up, fatso!" snapped Solitude. Now, this was a horribly wrong move. North did not like being called fat. Sure, when the kids and their parents called him a "jolly fat man" or whatever, it was fine, but when this…this son of Pitch said it North felt his blood boil. Even if he was adopted, it was absolutely unacceptable.

Solitude knew that he was in hot water when North swiftly set him down against the wall and advanced with a fire in his usually calm blue eyes. "_What_ did you just call me, boy?"

"Oh dear," breathed Tempest, holding her head in her hands.

"North!" hissed Tooth. "That is _enough!"_

Reluctantly, North retreated. The other seven Nightmare Children had all awoken during the short scene and were watching with wide eyes. (Except for Wrath — his face was, though almost unfrozen, still a bit numb and he was not yet completely in control of his facial expressions.) Tooth handed Death's limp body to a Yeti, fluttered up to Solitude and kept a gentle hand on his shoulder as he and the other children were escorted into Cell One. The cell was barely large enough to hold ten kids, and when the barred door was slammed and locked shut, some of the teens started to panic. It was very strange. One second they were silent and defiant, the next they were freaking out like it was the end of the world.

It started with Pain. She was a tall, beautiful young woman, with a cunning smile, soft hair, perfect curves, and striking scarlet eyes. But when that door slammed shut, those eyes bulged to the size of apples and she screamed, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

(A little known fact about Pain: since she couldn't feel physical pain, she was mostly tormented by the mental. She had a deep fear of restriction — like being put in a cell with nine of her adoptive siblings.)

Then Dark had the folly to roll his eyes (which for once were unprotected by his signature sunglasses) and look up at the fluorescent light, which caused him to go ten shades paler, squeak "So much LIGHT!" and fall to the ground in yet another dead faint.

Pain started babbling hysterically, making senseless threats, and/or yammering on and on about nothing that made sense.

Loss pulled her little rag doll out from somewhere inside her skin-tight black leather jumpsuit, waved it in people's faces randomly, and laughed when they recoiled.

Judgment started reciting his favorite episode of _Law and Order, _which he had memorized all the way through.

Death glared at Loss when she tried to steal his silver skull ring, which caused the girl's heart to literally stop for a second. (Just for a second — but it was frightening enough.)

Tempest experimentally clicked her heels together and muttered "There's no place like home" three times, then when it didn't work resigned herself to curling up into the fetal position.

Wrath looked at his hand, made sure he wasn't wearing his gauntlet or brass knuckles, and then facepalmed.

Danger mouthed to the Guardians, _"Help me"._

Solitude started looking for the corner in the round room, and upon finding none, went to the back, sat down with his back to everyone, tucked his head in, stuck his thumb into his mouth, and began to sob.

Shame burst into laughter at everyone else.

"Ha ha, you can't fool me, Death Breath!" shouted Pain when Death tried to get the eighteen-year-old to settle down. Insanity burned bright in her naturally red eyes, which was scary even to Death. "I'm Pain, the Queen of Agony! I AM INVINCIBLE, thanks to the awesome power of the Mountain Dew! You may have broken Tempy and Dare Devil, but you will not break ME! HAHAHA!"

"Is there something wrong with her?" asked Jack, referring to Pain of course.

Tempest nodded. "She's a bit claustrophobic. And she gets hyper really easily. And — WAIT JUST ONE BLOODY SECOND, I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT!" This was, of course, directed towards Pain, who was now the victim of a famous Nightmare Child death glare.

Pain froze and averted her eyes. "Sorry…"

Tempest nodded. "I thought so."

Then they all went back to their respective jobs, namely crying, thumb-sucking, laughing, reciting, pouting, and/or staring.

"And, since she's immune to physical pain," continued Wrath, who had ceased in his facepalming and advanced to headwalling as if the interruption had never occurred, "she's gotta have some kind of weakness."

"HEY! Don't you be telling all and sundry my fatal flaw!" screamed Pain, waving around her balled fists like a toddler. "Sure! Go announce it over the New York Jumbotron next! Now they're going to try to torture me for information by putting me in a closet or something! I WILL TELL YOU WEIRDOS NOTHING!"

Death rolled his eyes. He'd just about had it. A little screaming was okay in his opinion — after all, people screamed a lot during and/or before death — but this was _way _out of control. He grabbed Pain by the shoulders, spun her around to face him, and slapped her across the face. Hard. She shut up instantly.

"So slapping _does _cure hysteria," he remarked, pushing her away and wiping his hands off on his black trench coat as if he'd just touched something nasty. "Interesting."

"Look, we're not going to torture you!" Tooth finally interrupted, fluttering over to the bars and gazing upon the freaked-out teens in the same way that a frazzled preschool teacher might gaze upon her beloved group of hyperactive students.

This came as a surprise to not only Pain but all of the Nightmare Children. Tempest and Wrath stopped headwalling in sync. Solitude actually turned around. Dark didn't move (he would be out for quite a while and would later be filled in on by his siblings as to what had happened) but the rest of them froze and stared at the bird-woman.

"You're…not going to torture us?" repeated Wrath, slightly confused.

"Absolutely not!" cried Tooth, horrified at the very idea.

"Why would _we_ torture _you _for information that we don't need?" asked Bunny cynically.

"And you're — you're just _kids!" _Tooth held her head in her hands. She couldn't say she was often overwhelmed but this — it was too much. Maybe it was different in battle — yes, she struck first, but she'd just been so angry and, for the most part after that, had been acting in self defense — but she couldn't imagine ever hurting or killing a child in cold blood. And, as much as she wanted to deny it, these were actual, live children. Okay, okay…a few of the older ones might be legal adults by this point but _still._

"But if you're not going to torture us…" Solitude frowned, as if mulling the question over in his head, "then why are we here?"

"You're here," explained Bunny irritably, trying to keep himself calm. Pain's shrieking had done some _serious _damage to his eardrums. "You're here because you decided to attack us for no apparent reason and killed — " The Pooka stopped when he realized where he was going with it and cast apologetic glances to Tooth and North. "Uh, sorry, mates."

Tooth just nodded and North sniffled. "Is all right, Bunny."

"Look," said Tempest, leaning against the bars of her cell, "you might think you've broken me and Danger just because we're not cussing you guys out anymore, but you haven't." She paused, glanced back at her siblings, then at the Guardians. "But I'll tell you the truth anyway."

This made her siblings break out in protest and more yelling ensued, but they were silenced instantly when Tempest opened her mouth and yelled, "SHUT IT!" The collar around her neck should have prevented her from using her powers, but no one even considered that the thunder rolling far above the Pole could have simply been a coincidence.

So her siblings did the wise thing and shut it. Tempest closed her eyes and breathed in the meditative way Pitch had taught her to do when her _idiotic siblings _were acting like children, and when she opened her eyes again they were relatively calm, though still fiery. "It's not like we have a better option," she told her siblings. "Honestly, I think that it doesn't matter."

"It _does _matter!" spat Wrath. "THEY are the _enemy! _Father said that ANY information we give them could be used as a weapon!"

"Wrath, wouldja just _chillax already?" _Danger snapped. "They already know, like, everything about us."

"Oh?" Wrath hissed, rounding on his little sister. "And who told them that, _Dare Devil?"_

"Bite me, _Wraith," _Danger replied with a smirk. Oh, how much he hated it when she called him that, and oh how she knew it. "They know because we were stupid in that fight and let loose a bunch of witty banter that gave them as much information as an autobiography! In fact, I remember you chatting up Old Saint Nick over there like you were old — "

The right hook came from out of nowhere. Danger was on the ground before she knew what was happening and getting pummeled by her older brother. It had little to no effect on her and she threw him off, giving him a none-too-gentle kick in the jewels for good measure. "And that, big brother, is why you do not mess with me!" she sang happily as Wrath's voice hit the high C and everyone else, especially the male spectators, flinched. A couple of the girls couldn't help but snicker.

"Dude," Wrath squeaked, reaching for the closest Nightmare Child and scrabbling at the hem of his robe, "dur…ugh…elp…"

Judgment raised one eyebrow, glancing at the curled up and sobbing Wrath, then at the grinning Danger. "You want help?"

Wrath managed to nod weakly. "She…killed my kids…"

(To which most of the girls and some of the less sympathetic boys broke out into uncontrollable giggles.)

Danger just sniffed. "Wimp."

"Then I shall do what I can," said Judgment, brushing off his robe. He cleared his throat. "Further violence is unnecessary, because it is clear who is in the wrong here."

"He is!" Danger yelled, pointing at Wrath at the same time Wrath glared at her and managed to choke, "She is!"

"Clearly," Judgment continued as if, again, he heard nothing, "Wrath is guilty for assaulting a woman."

"HA!" Danger barked.

That was when Death stepped between Wrath and Danger, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace. "We have no proof that our dear brother has assaulted a woman," he deadpanned, turning to his sister.

"Moron." She blew a raspberry. "They all saw him hit me."

"I spoke not of the assault but of your true status as a woman."

Half the observers' mouths were hanging open. The other half was going "OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH". Danger looked like she was about to blow a fuse.

"Dare Devil — " Tempest said between suppressed laughs, using the choice nickname for the wild girl. Okay, maybe she was being a bit of a hypocrite, but any chance to tick off her siblings was a good one.

"IT'S DANGER, DAMN YOU ALL! DANGER!" the girl in question hollered, flinging herself at her sister and grabbing hold of her ponytail. Tempest shrieked when Danger yanked at the choppy locks and brought her fist up. Tempest managed to jerk herself away and Danger's fist connected with her shoulder, which had little to no effect.

"Oh! Oh! We've got two girls in a prison brawl!" Solitude shouted, coming out of his usual thumb-sucking stupor. "I don't know whether to break it up or break out the video camera!"

_"__Solitude!" _moaned Pain as the other two girls instantly paused their brawl in order to momentarily solve their differences in order to eliminate their common enemy. "You really are an idiot…"

"Greatest idiot of them all," remarked Shame happily. If anyone, _she _was enjoying this.

Tempest and Danger were now literally on top of the poor Solitude. "AGH! Pesty, Danger, get off me!" he yelped, kicking out uselessly at Tempest and swiping at Danger's face before she pinned his arms.

"That's it, bro, you've officially been watching too much reality TV," said Tempest with an evil grin as she seated herself on Solitude's somewhat soft stomach and began to tickle him. "And you have crossed a line by calling me Pesty."

The Guardians watched, astounded, as the teens who had freaked out the second they were put in a ten-foot cell started laughing at their brother's misfortune. Despite her fiery temper as befit her name and her badass training, Tempest was acting like a complete kid as she used her best tickle fingers on the poor stupid Solitude. Danger was sitting on his arms, then the Nightmare Children let out cries of "AGH!" and "Dear darkness, _Danger!" _to which Danger replied "What?" innocently. As if she hadn't just let rip a massive and completely silent death-bomb, just to bug her sibs.

Tempest recovered her wits quickly, and Solitude regained full consciousness when she yanked up his shirt and started tickling again. "ACK! Please Pesty — Tempest, please!" Solitude begged between uncontrollable laughs as his sister moved her hands up and down his ribs. "Let — me — go!"

"Nope," said Tempest crisply. "I don't think you've learned your lesson yet. Danger," she ordered, exchanging a glance and a silent message with her sister. The smaller girl nodded and jammed two of her fingers up her brother's nose. "Let's see the result of oxygen deprivation coupled with laughing." The evil grin was as evil as it could get as Tempest began tickling her brother with all her might.

The result was Solitude nearly passing out after twenty seconds. When he was panting and gasping like a drowning man, Tempest decided to show a bit of mercy. She gave the silent command and both girls let their brother up.

The Guardians didn't know what to think. "That…" Jack murmured fuzzily.

"Yeah," Bunny agreed.

"All kinds of creepy," Tooth said.

"Hey, we're allowed to be kids if we want to!" Danger protested.

"Danger, honey," Tempest said kindly, turning to her smaller sister and putting her arm around her shoulders, "you've never matured past _seven, _you know that, don't you?"

"Oh, bug off," Danger grumbled, ducking out from under her sister's arm and sticking her tongue out.

Suddenly Tempest replied in kind, sticking her equally long and red tongue out. The other Nightmare Children gasped. Tempest…she did not just…their serious, warlike assassin of a sister just stuck her tongue out! Never before had she resorted to such an immature, childlike gesture of retaliation!

"What?" Tempest and the five Guardians asked at the same time. Sandy asked the question with a simple _? _over his head.

Her siblings were giving her a weird, confused look, so Tempest edged slightly away from them. "What?" she asked again, returning the weird, confused look.

"Um, Mr. Claus, we _are_ getting our full supply of oxygen down here, am I correct?" Judgment asked respectfully.

North furrowed his brow, just as confused as Tempest. "Um, yes. At least, that I know of."

Judgment nodded and exhaled in relief. "Okay. It's probably just Danger rubbing off on you after being in such close proximity to you for so long, Temp. You're good."

Jack had to stuff his fist in his mouth to stop himself from saying, _Yes, she is._

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" groaned Tempest irritably, flopping down on the floor and crossing her legs. "I'm no more _good _than the rest of you."

Silence stretched in the cell block for a long while, then North coughed. "Ahem. You were going to tell us why you were here?"

"Oh yeah, right," Tempest laughed. "Guess we got a bit off track."

Wrath scowled, but no one paid any attention to him.

"Well, we've been training for this literally our entire lives," the denim-clad girl began.

"Right," sniffed Jack sarcastically. North hushed him. Seriously, the first sentence and he's already got something to sniff sarcastically at.

"Tempest isn't lying," said Loss. All the Guardians jumped at hearing her voice. She had been mostly silent until now, curled up in the corner, and trying to recover from the heart-stopping terror caused by Death's death glare. "We seriously didn't have a choice. We've been just…living under Pitch's care and training for as long as we can remember."

"And how long is that?" inquired Tooth, genuine curiosity lacing her voice.

"Ten years?" she replied with a shrug. She picked up a small rock from the floor and started idly sharpening it on the head of her doll. The Nightmare Children around her slowly slid away, but she seemed not to notice.

"And one week," put in Pain. Her voice was actually quite nice when she wasn't shrieking or tormenting people's minds.

"So you don't remember anything from before you were…eight?" Jack asked, still a bit skeptic.

"Five for me," put in Tempest. "We're all different ages."

"Wait, wait, wait," Bunny cut in. "So…wait, if you really _did _have _one _mom who gave birth to all you, how the heck did she_ do_ that?"

Shame cleared her throat and held up her index finger. Then she recited, like she'd worked hard at memorizing it, "One set of twins, born January 13. Next year, quadruplets on April 13. Triplets the next year on July 11. The next year, twins on September 3. And one single kid the next year, on October 17." She gave a grin at her memorization skills and then shrugged. "Not too hard."

"Not for you, maybe," Jack snickered. "But for the mom? No wonder you're called the Nightmare Children."

Several of said teens yelled "SHUT IT, FROST" and wisely, he obeyed.

Tooth realized only then that she was biting her nails and resolved to stop. Twins, quadruplets, triplets, twins, and one…it was really, really far-fetched, but not impossible. Still, wow. She couldn't deny that Pitch would be on that poor woman that soon (Pitch was…well, _Pitch, _anyway) but the fact that she'd stayed with him and let him? Yikes. Though if the story was true, she'd rest much happier if the "mother" — if there was one — had a say in the matter. "So, Pitch told you that?"

"Well, yeah," said Tempest in the "duh" voice that all teenagers seemed to be famous for. " We just woke up one day, and Father — Pitch gave us names, told us he was our dad, and answered any questions we had. He said later…" She inhaled shakily and stared at her feet. "When we were old enough, he explained that our mother was dead, and that when she had died we had been so guilt stricken that our own powers consumed us. He managed to save us, but our memories had been lost. That's all he ever told us, and he never spoke about Mom."

"How old is the youngest? Fourteen, right?" asked Tooth. All of the Guardians could tell that the gears were turning frantically in the fairy's mind, but she didn't say anything about it.

"Four, back then," replied Death from the back of the room.

Tooth's bright violet eyes darted back and forth as she stared at nothing, her lips moving without releasing any words. It was apparent that she was getting at something, and the other four Guardians, not to mention quite a few of the Nightmare Children, were watching her intently. After quite a while, during which they could almost see the puzzle pieces falling into place in the scatterbrained fairy's mind — even though no one except her knew what picture was being formed — she asked in a quiet voice, "There are twelve of you, am I right?"

The captive Nightmare Children exchanged glances. Tempest shrugged, as if saying, _what harm could it do?_

"Twelve of us," said Danger. "Shame, Death, Loss, Dark, Danger the awesome, Wrath, Pain, Solitude, Suffering, Judgment, Tempest, Unknown. Why?"

A couple people objected to "Danger the awesome", but everyone else ignored them.

"Just for confirmation," said Tooth, "you've been growing just like normal children?"

"Eh…more or less," answered Tempest a bit uncomfortably, obviously reminded of some of the escapades of puberty — the Guardians wondered what that was like for Pitch, and almost pitied him. Then she looked up sharply and narrowed her eyes. "But seriously, Feather Head. Why?"

Tooth took on that "deep thinking" look again. "Um…no reason," she said distractedly. "Hey guys, uh, I need to go check up on my fairies, okay? Just to see if they're holding down the fort."

"Umm…okay?" said North. Tooth nodded briskly and zipped away. Sandy held up his hands and put yet another question mark above his head.

"Yeah, you got that right, sand dude," muttered Tempest. She knew that the fairy was hiding something, but what?

"Um, question," said Solitude, raising one hand tentatively. "Is she always like that?"

"Eh…more or less," replied Jack.

The other Guardians began to leave, but Jack stayed. Tempest cocked her head and eyed him as she leaned against the bars of the cell door. "What do _you_ want?" It was an actual question, with a bit of amusement and more than a bit of arrogance inflected in it.

Jack hesitated, blinked, and coughed, not sure how to say it.

"Oooooooooooooooooh…" sang a voice from inside Cell One. "Draaaaaaa-maaaaaaah! I'll go get my popcorn!"

"Shut up, Shame," said Tempest as a red flush crept up her cheeks. "You were saying, Ice Brain?"

Jack inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and lowered his head. "I — I'm sorry."

She was caught somewhat off guard by this. "For what?"

"I — we didn't know about you guys. We thought you did this voluntarily."

Tempest considered this. "Maybe we did." There was no maybe about it.

Jack eyed her confusedly. "What?"

"Even if we hadn't been training our entire lives just to eliminate you Guardians, we still would have done it," Tempest explained, ignoring the tightening of Jack's hands on his staff. "Why? Because we want to make Dad proud, that's why." The others nodded and murmured in assent. "He's loved us, and we want to make him proud of us in return."

"But Pitch is evil!" Jack exploded. "How can you want to _please_ him?"

The other Nightmare Children were all stone silent. "Really?" Tempest cocked her head and gave him that weird little half-smile that he was getting creepily used to. "_Pitch _is evil? Wow. Because this whole time, I thought that the evil ones were the ones we were _attacking_. The ones that punished a man and drove him underground, just because he wanted to be seen. Just because he wanted to be noticed, to be felt, to be _loved. _Just like you, Frost." She gestured to the others behind her and they all looked up, giving him the same little half-smile.

Tempest's voice was soft and maybe a bit rueful as she said, "Just like all of us."

That struck a chord, but Jack tried not to let her see it. He was a Guardian now. He had believers. No longer was he the invisible loner. He had gotten over that fear…mostly.

Tempest smirked when he said nothing, like she could see straight past the mask and right into his heart. "I thought so."

Jack said nothing, nor could he have even if he had had anything to say. He just exhaled, nodded once, and trudged away. But before he left, he turned around to see nine pairs of eyes, _children's eyes,_ watching him. Even if they were teenagers trained and brought up solely for killing, they were all still technically children and all of them were younger than him by at least three hundred years. And even though he didn't want to, Jack felt a pang of emotion, _sympathy _even, for them.

"You know," he said, trying to make his words sound reassuring, "we really don't mean to treat you badly. It's just…we're trying to protect what we stand for, and if you try to kill us just for that…" He wasn't sure how to finish this, so he just shrugged. "I'm sorry."

And with that, Jack Frost left, not knowing the impact he made.

XXXXXXXXX

Several thousand miles away, Unknown felt a surge of his special brand of fear and he frowned, wondering what was going on.

* * *

**Okay okay okay. I DID add a thing, the Wal-mart scene. I just got the idea and I thought it'd be funny. :/**

**Little shameless self-promo: I FINALLY got a DeviantArt! My username is argenticNocturne and I would really love it if some of the fellow Deviants on here would check my stuff out, see if I'm doing everything right and all because I really don't know how to draw very well and I really don't know how to use the site. 0_0**

**I am also most definitely planning to upload a few sketches from this story so that'd be really awesome if you guys could check them out..? :)**

**Reviews are appreciated, I've got serious writer's block and I love hearing what you guys think about this story, the characters, the concept, everything — it helps me get inspired. Thanks guys! :)**


	8. Attempt (The Third)

**Painapple: HHHRGLAKSIORS ;SFJFDD D DID. DID YOU EVEN READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTE OR DID I JUST FORGET TO MENTION. THAT LIKE HOMESTUCK. EVERYTHING HERE IS IMPORTANT I WILL NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH ANYTHING THAT WILL NOT HAVE EVENTUAL REPERCUSSIONS.**

**GUYS.**

**PLEASE DO NOT SKIP CHAPTERS BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE THE ROMANCE. BECAUSE. CHANCES ARE THE 10,000 WORD CHAPTER HAS 9,900 WORDS OF PLOT IMPORTANCE AND 100 WORDS OF ROMANCE ****_IF ANY AT ALL_****. AND FOR THE LAST TIME THE PLOT ITSELF. HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ROMANCE.**

**I WILL NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH FRIVOLITIES. I DO NOT INSERT MORE THAN I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO IN ORDER TO ROUND OFF A SCENE IN A PLAUSIBLE, BELIEVABLE FASHION. THIS IS NOT REVENGE OF THE ICE PRINCE OR DEATH'S DECEPTION, PEOPLE. THERE WILL NEVER BE A 'FLUFF' CHAPTER AMIDST THE PLOT CHANGES — NOT IN THAT LAST CHAPTER, NOT TODAY IN THIS ONE, NOT IN ANY EPILOGUE NOT EVER AS LONG AS WE'RE HERE.**

**IF YOU SKIP A POTENTIAL 'FLUFF' CHAPTER, YOU WILL BE SKIPPING EVERYTHING NECESSARY AND COMING BACK TO ME CONFUSED AND FURIOUS THAT I DID NOT EXPLAIN IT TO YOU, HOLD YOUR HAND AND TELL YOU "OH THERE'S GOING TO BE IMPORTANT STUFF HERE, BUT DON'T READ THIS PART BECAUSE THE TEENAGERS GET HORMONAL".**

**I KNOW HOW THIS WORKS, PEOPLE.**

**SO I'M TELLING YOU NOW. IT'S EXACTLY LIKE HOMESTUCK. SKIP ONE FREAKING PESTERLOG BECAUSE IT LOOKS REALLY LONG AND YOU SEE YOUR NO-TP — AND SUDDENLY YOU'RE CONFUSED FOR THE REST OF THE 13-ONGOING ACTS BECAUSE THERE WAS A REASON HUSSIE WROTE THE PESTERLOG THAT LONG.**

**LONG STORY SHORT.**

**I DON'T WANT. TO WASTE TIME. WRITING ROMANCE. ANY MORE. THAN YOU WANT. TO WASTE TIME. READING ROMANCE. **

**THERE.**

**IS.**

**NO.**

**REAL.**

**LASTING.**

**ROMANCE.**

**That is all I have to say for now.**

**XXXXXXXXX**

Several things preyed on the mind of the fairy-queen as and after she left the North Pole. First, she was _unbearably_ tired and wished to the Moon above that she was heading back to her palace for a nice rest, maybe a bowl of fruit and a bath, but she knew that this wasn't possible under the circumstances. She needed to get to her palace because of the other three things that were floating around in her mind.

Secondly, the children. The Nightmare Children, as Tempest had so accurately called them. Tempest had said that there were twelve of them, and yet only eight had been sent to rescue their sisters. Why? This troubled Toothiana and she pondered about it for a while. The gentle flurry of snow and wind rippled through her feathers, keeping her alert of the world around her.

Third, what was she going to tell the rest of her girls about Bindi?

Bindi was the lieutenant that had been killed in the crossfire of the battle. Every time Tooth pictured her little fallen warrior, she felt tears come to her eyes that quickly began to freeze in the cold temperatures of the higher skies. Tooth wiped them off and continued on. She would deal with that later. She would have a grand funeral for Bindi with everyone attending when this was over. There would be her favorite flowers, baby's breath, in a wreath on her chest and the elves would provide tolling bells, just like at Sandy's ceremony.

Fourth, and lastly, Tooth wondered if she was right in her theory. It would be a real advantage if she was, but she had to be sure before she told the others. They wouldn't believe her at first, and that was why she needed to go to the palace, to make sure she was right. If she did, then they would be able to act. If not, then…

Tooth shook her head and allowed a small grin to cross her face. Not right, ha! She was almost completely certain. She would bet her _life _that she was right.

"I _will _be betting my life," she told herself as she crossed the ocean, swooping down and allowing her fingers to skim the rippling waves beneath her as she flew. "And the lives of everyone else if all goes well, though knowing men, of course, it probably won't, right? They are_ so _over-protective. I'm a warrior queen, for Manny's sake! How delicate do they think I am?"

This was something that irritated Tooth constantly. Just because she was a woman didn't mean that she was some stupid glass ornament that would shatter if someone walked too much near it. Whenever the men started making battle plans, she knew that she had to fight to get included in it. And, being a warrior queen, her opinion mattered quite a lot, as the other Guardians learned when North had first tried to train the Yetis to defend the Pole. Actually, it had been her that had whipped the big fur balls into shape. North had helped of course, fetching things and laying out maps as Tooth explained the borders of the Pole and the strategic entry and exit points. But little else.

Tooth smiled again, remembering the fun times when they hadn't been battling for their lives every day. When they had just done their jobs and nothing had gone wrong.

Then Pitch came back.

Tooth felt her hands clench as she soared through the skies. _Pitch. _He'd been the cause of all this. He had recruited — stolen, if her hunch was correct — these kids and raised them as soldiers just for the sake of revenge on his enemies. It was horrible and she couldn't even imagine what they must have grown up learning and seeing.

_They had looked pretty happy when they were brawling in that cell,_ said an unbidden voice in her head. Tempest had said that Pitch had loved them and had kept them safe. Safe from what? From _him?_ Tooth sighed. Seeing all those kids together had seriously tapped into the unending motherly instinct that came from a thousand years of taking care of a thousand fairy-daughters.

It was made even worse because of Bindi's death. She was feeling all emotional and that made her feel strangely vulnerable, like when Solitude had called North fat and she had intervened. That was a perfect example. If she hadn't been mourning the death of her daughter and hadn't been nearly dead on her feet from exhaustion, she would have never ordered North to spare the boy. He had insulted North, and so he had deserved whatever punishment North was going to deliver.

Tooth smirked grimly. Yeah, right. North would have never hurt that skinny, long-haired kid. Guardians only ever hurt children in extreme, _extreme_ cases, such as those cases where the children were pointing deadly weapons at them and working for Pitch. She herself had never hurt a child and she was sure that none of the others would ever hurt a child willingly.

When Tooth finally arrived back at her palace, the place was immediately thrown into the lesser definition of chaos as she ordered her smaller entities to find exactly what it was she was looking for. Or, more accurately, to _not _find what she was looking for. A few of them asked her why she hadn't come back with Bindi, but Tooth told her little girls that right now this was priority. She would have to tell them eventually, but not now. Not yet.

After about five minutes of agitated waiting on one of the platforms overlooking her entire palace, one of her fairies tapped her gently on the shoulder and squeaked that they hadn't found them. The Mini Fairy, whose name was Beala, thought that her mother would be sad when she broke the news, but instead her mother seemed to brighten up. She looked even chipper.

"Thank you dear, can you take me to them?" Tooth asked excitedly, rising to her feet and staring expectantly at the little fairy. Beala nodded hesitantly and, wondering if her mother was breaking down from the strain of work and the rumored battle that had taken place at the Pole, led her to the twelve empty tooth compartments.

Tooth's mind was abuzz with excitement. She was right! _She was right! _There could be no denying that now! She only needed a few more pieces of evidence to tell the Guardians of, and she was going to the first of them right now! She felt happier than she had been since this whole thing started and though she still mourned for Bindi and the other fallen warriors, the pain was covered by her excitement at the breakthrough she'd had. Of course she was still sad, but she couldn't let it show. She had to set an example because, as everyone knows, mother knows best.

Tooth followed her fairy to the first tower. There it was, right in front of her. An empty slot. She let a small smile crease her mouth and the little mini-fairy beside her edged away slowly.

"Oh honey, it's all right. I'm fine," she said, patting her little girl gently on the top of her head. "Now, where's the next one?"

Beala squeaked and gestured for her mother to follow her. This cycle continued eleven more times and at the last empty slot, Tooth dismissed her daughter. "Thank you so much, dear. Can you tell Baby Tooth that I'm going back to North's for a bit? I'll be back soon; she just needs to keep an eye on things for another few hours." Beala nodded and Tooth said, "Oh, and thank her for me, will you? She does a lot for me and I don't want her to think she's being underappreciated."

Beala nodded and smiled at her mother.

"Thank you. That is all."

And the little fairy-girl left.

Tooth turned back to the tower where the empty slot gazed out at her, simply waiting to be filled with its respective tooth box. "I suppose this should make me sad," she sighed, running her hand around the edges of the empty hole. "But, given the circumstances, I'm actually…_glad _that it's not there. It proves my theory, and now I can go back to the Pole to tell them." And with that, Tooth took to the skies.

When Pitch had been defeated those long eleven years ago, Tooth and her fairies had worked feverishly to put every tooth box back where it belonged. It had taken almost half a year, what with organizing and sorting and the male Guardians dropping by to _"help" _every so often — which was more of a hindrance than a help because they had not the faintest idea of how to put things right by her sorting system — but the job had eventually been finished. Oh, sure, there were still a few bits and pieces that needed to be cleaned up, a couple dozen assorted tooth boxes to clean and reorganize, but nothing more.

They had all allowed themselves a day of rest and relaxation and after that, business had returned to normal.

For about a day.

Later, one of her fairies had flown to Tooth in a state of panic, squeaking frantically about missing containers and empty slots. Tooth had followed the fairy and had been horrified to learn that there were exactly twelve tooth boxes missing. None had been seen since before Pitch had stolen them all; the other fairies had just assumed they were still being cleaned. They were all from children who were still alive and still filling up their boxes; none of them were older than eight.

The youngest was a four-year-old boy whose first tooth had been knocked out at the age of two when he had fallen down the stairs during the night — Tooth remembered that it had been a miracle, seeing as the tooth had come out cleanly and undamaged and the child had had no other injuries. All of the children were from different countries, too — Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland, India, Peru, Cambodia, Thailand, Mozambique, Great Britain, America, and Japan. It had been very strange that only these twelve would be missing. And why them?

Tooth was positive that she knew now. Twelve children, between the ages of four and eight — now fourteen and eighteen. Tooth hadn't examined all of them up close, but she knew that their current physical appearances probably had nothing to do with their ethnicities — Pitch could have easily changed them to make them utterly unrecognizable, at least with a little help of magic. Same with the children's powers; drawing power from oneself in order to strengthen another was dangerous and rare but not unheard of. The children's names and their powers were probably specifically selected to match their personalities and lessen suspicion that they had ever been mortal children.

And the language barrier wasn't one that was hard to cross, either. She had a brief, terrifying flashback of the time Jack had gotten his hands on some of North's potions and managed to change Bunny's default language to Japanese, simple as that. It had taken a couple weeks for the antidote to kick in, and even after that Bunny occasionally let slip an accidental _"kuso!"_

Tooth smiled. She had them! She knew now who they were! Despite having no memories, which were easy things to conceal — all it took was a bit of the right kind of magic in the right place and one's entire past could be taken away — it all fit perfectly into place. She knew who they were, and her theory was supported even more when she considered the fact that no teeth had been gathered from any of the twelve children after their boxes had gone missing. Which was probably why she had forgotten about them.

The only flaw in her theory was how and why. If Pitch had indeed abducted those twelve children from the outside world, then why hadn't the Guardians heard about it? Missing children were common in these darker, crueler days, and every time a child vanished, the Guardians would hear about it and do their best to protect that child, even help him or her until they were found. This wasn't specifically in their job description, but come on! All spirits did it and, as Guardians, they were supposed to _protect the children,_ right?

After a long time of flying, Tooth thought she had figured out the answer, though it made her hands clench to even consider it. Still, it was the only thing that made sense.

Even though she was gifted with something of a photographic memory, facts could get muddled after such a long, busy time. She recalled that five, maybe six of the children had been from abusive homes. One of those children, a seven-year-old girl from Mozambique, was being forced into a marriage with a man decades older than her, and when she resisted, her father beat her almost to the point of death, disfiguring her face.

The two eight-year-olds had been child soldiers — stolen from their homes, forced to fight on the sides against the law. One of the other children had been an orphan in a large city orphanage, and the last three from families too poor and too insignificant for the government-paid news channels to make a huge deal about it. The children from abusive homes would probably not have been loved enough for their parents to care if they suddenly vanished. Child soldiers often went missing or were killed, and it wasn't exactly like their criminal owners could call in and ask where they'd gone. And that particular orphanage had been too big and the child too solitary (the child in question had probably been Solitude, come to think of it) for anyone to notice his absence for a while.

Tooth felt her hands start to shake, though whether this was from the rapidly sinking temperature as she flew farther north, from anger, or from both, she didn't know. She hated hearing about children who lived like that, hated the people who were supposed to care for them, and most of all hated herself for not doing anything about it.

_Oh, come on,_ she scolded herself harshly. _These children dropped off the face of the earth. You couldn't have helped them._

"But I can help them now!" she argued fiercely. And she would. She would help them.

"The only problem is," she remarked to herself and her three by-flying lieutenants as she skimmed the surface of the Atlantic, "how will I get them to believe me? I don't have their memories, Pitch probably does, and they've been brought up to believe all Guardians are evil."

She thought and thought until she eventually came up with one simple answer. She would have to get the twelve tooth boxes back from Pitch.

_The others aren't going to like this, _said a little voice in her head that sounded remarkably like her own. (Don't think she's crazy, and don't deny it — we all have the voice. It's called our conscience. Most people just ignore it.)

"Well, tough," she smirked.

The tooth boxes were virtually indestructible. Special enchanted wards around each and every one ensured that nothing short of a nuclear explosion could even dent them. And they were literally impenetrable if one did not own the teeth inside, or was not usually allowed access to the Tooth Columns in the palace. There were several ways to wipe the memories stored inside the teeth, and all required the children themselves to be present at the time the magic was cast. So it was unlikely that Pitch had destroyed the boxes. They were probably locked up or hidden somewhere. The problem now was to find them.

"Now they'll have to let me go," said Tooth as she fluttered above the frigid tundra. "I'm the only one who can sense the teeth!"

And that thought was what kept her going all the way back to North's.

XXXXXXXXX

Back in his lair, Pitch was getting antsy. And that was not good for anyone within five meters of him. Each time he paced down his bedroom he shot a blast of nightmare sand at the wall, leaving the already-black wall peppered with small craters and burn marks.

It had been nearly three hours since he had sent his children to bring back their sisters and he hadn't heard a word from any of them. The situation down here was no better either. Pitch had recently attempted the tenth father-to-son talk with Unknown and, as with the first nine, failed. There had been little more than shrugs or the shaking of heads from the victim of the attempted conversation. Absolutely no progress, save Pitch learning that Unknown liked silver gel pens, watched anime on his iPod after everyone else had gone to bed, and could not be bribed into talking, even with chocolate. It wasn't exactly helpful information.

After another five minutes of pacing, he let out a groan of frustration and hurled another mighty discharge at the wall. The blast sent sand and shattered rock flying everywhere and did nothing to placate his mood. Surely a rescue didn't take that long. His children — _all ten of them —_ should be back by now with blood on their hands and smiles on their faces!

Snarling, Pitch stomped over to his mahogany bedside table and wrenched open the drawer. Inside was a slim black cell phone that he had stolen out of curiosity a few years ago. He took the phone out, turned it on, and scrolled through the contact list, trying to decide which Nightmare Child he should call. Several years ago, the Nightmare Children had begged for phones and Pitch had reluctantly agreed, reasoning that it would be easier than using his shadows and nightmare sand each time he wanted them.

The result had been less than fun. Danger had dropped hers in a lava pit while exploring the deeper underground caverns and as punishment hadn't been allowed another one for a year. When she had gotten _that _one, she had accidentally used it to call in an air strike on a tiny pizza place in Tallahassee. Pitch hadn't been pleased with that episode either. Then, as if Danger's antics weren't bad enough, Judgment got caught making prank calls with his phone and hadn't been allowed it for another year as well.

Then Suffering decided it would be fun to order fifteen thick-crust pepperoni pizzas to the lair and Pain decided it would be even more fun to swipe the pizza boy's truck. Danger, Shame, and Wrath had hence stolen it from Pain and taken it on a joyride throughout some of the larger corridors of the lair, kidnapping the hapless Judgment and Death as they did so. Solitude, Dark, and Unknown had then seen it a perfect opportunity to exercise their brands of fear on the poor lost pizza guy as he stumbled alone and confused through the dark mazelike corridors of the lair, which in fact gave them so much new strength that they were, quite literally, bouncing off the walls for a week afterwards. Meanwhile, Tempest and Loss had instituted a pizza-eating contest and spent the next hour or so puking out their guts. Neither of them ever ate pepperoni pizza ever again.

Pitch had _really _not been pleased with this one. Keep in mind, this was when they were in the grip of adolescence. If you think pimples, mood swings, and greasy hair is bad, try dealing with twelve pubescent partial-spirits with _phones!_

At the end of it all, Pitch had resolved not to give back any of their phones until they were old and mature enough to handle them. Even then he still caught Danger making the occasional air strike call.

Out of all the Nightmare Children, Death was actually the one most capable of maintaining a phone. Arrogant as he could be, he still had a bit more in between the ears than the average teenager. But Pitch wouldn't call _his _phone. Every time he called that kid, he always sounded slightly amused and only a few weeks ago he'd found out why — instead of a normal caller ID photos, he'd Google the person's name and use the most sarcastic picture he could find. For example, Pain's picture was the fat red monster from the Hercules movie, Dark was just a plain black screen, Wrath's was a chibi version of Wrath from the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime, and Pitch's was of some really beefy tattooed wrestler named The Boogeyman. In addition, Death was the kind of person who rigged his voicemail to sound like he was actually picking up the phone and, when he actually did pick up, which was a rare occasion, answered with things like: "Hello, Head Secretary Nico di Angelo speaking, from the city morgue. You stab 'em, we tag 'em. How may I help you?"

So no, not Death. There was something really wrong with that kid.

Pitch finally decided to call Wrath. The eighteen-year-old was ridiculously overprotective of his phone; in fact he had nearly killed Solitude when the younger boy had accidentally spilled a bit of water on one of the corners. He would still have his, Pitch assured himself. He pressed the call icon and waited. The cheery dial tone made him cringe and hold the phone a few inches away from his ear. About a minute later, someone picked up but instead of of Wrath's familiar brusque "WHAT?" on the other end, he heard North's voice booming from the speaker. " 'Alloo…?"

Promptly, Pitch hung up.

A shriek tore its way from his throat and, with all the strength in those wire-thin arms, he hurled the phone across the room where it hit the wall and burst into tiny pieces. "DAMMIT!" he swore. There could be only one reason why Nicholas St. North would have Wrath's phone. The others had been captured.

"Damn damn _damn it all!"_ Pitch yelled, kicking everything in his path as he stomped towards the door. He nearly wrenched it off its hinges, but he didn't care. "SUFFERING!"

XXXXXXXXX

Suffering was really, really, really bored.

Sure, she had liked the idea of staying at home while all of her idiot siblings went out to fight a battle that wasn't even theirs, but now that she was actually home by herself (with Pitch and Unknown of course, but they didn't count) she found it boring. Horribly boring. Torturously boring. _Excruciatingly_ boring.

Though not much of a talker, Suffering was a social little creature with only occasional bouts of antisocial-ness. She actually quite liked her siblings — they amused her. They were huge and stupid and self-obsessed. They still mostly saw her as a kid due to her…_vertical challenges _(she was seventeen and had never passed four and a half feet and it annoyed the crap out of her) but always remembered to give her a chance to talk when she wanted it, because otherwise she'd kick someone to kingdom come. And it was funny. But now that they weren't around, she had nothing to do.

After they'd left, she took a quick nap and then got a snack from the kitchen. Still yawning from her _siesta_, she wandered the hallways of the lair until she found herself in the library. Pitch had a surprisingly large library and she often came here just to sit and think. It was a little more illuminated than the other rooms in the lair, but just because so many of the children liked to read. Pitch himself had night vision and could read perfectly fine in the dark, but she and her siblings hadn't completely inherited this talent. Except for Dark, of course, but that came in the package of his powers, so he didn't count.

She curled up in her favorite chair, which was a huge, antique-y one with intricately carved mahogany armrests and black leather cushions, and stared at the marble bust that rested on a pedestal next to the chair. She didn't know who the bust was supposed to be of — Loss had failed to bring the plaque when she and Danger had stolen it from the British Museum — but she thought that it reminded her of Judgment. It had the same formal hairstyle, condescending eyes, big nose, and puckered mouth that gave Suffering the impression of someone who had just sucked the insides out of a lemon.

She made a weird face at it, sticking her tongue out of the left corner of her mouth, crossing her eyes, and scrunching up her nose.

It was only when she was making said weird face that she noticed someone was watching her. Unknown was standing in the aisle between two of the bookshelves, holding his quarterstaff in one hand and a leather-bound alchemy textbook in the other. He looked extremely weirded out. Slowly, she pulled her tongue back inside her mouth.

They stayed like this, staring at each other without moving or saying a word. Then Unknown said, "Maybe you hit your head harder than you thought."

The sarcasm was obvious. Suffering grimaced. "Don't tell Dad, okay?"

Her brother said nothing.

She sighed. "Please?"

He just shrugged. Then he turned around and started…running. _Great, _Suffering thought. _Now he's gonna tell Dad. _She was used to this behavior from years of living with Danger, Shame, and Judgment — widely known as the Tattlesnakes, for the obvious reasons. Each time one of them caught one of their other siblings doing something their father wouldn't approve of, the guilty party would make the witness promise not to tell and he or she would promise with a perfectly straight face, then run off and tell Daddy-Dearest what they'd seen.

Suffering sighed in defeat and sunk down in her chair, resigning herself to a major telling-off from her father. It would make sense that Unknown would want to get her in trouble anyway — she hadn't exactly been friendly with him lately especially after that one burrito incident, and always held it over his head that though she was the only one in the lair who was smaller than him, she could still take him down any day. Maybe this was his weird method of revenge. But as she watched her younger brother sprint down the aisle between the shelves, she received an unexpected surprise — instead of running towards the door, he kept going straight, making a beeline for one of the bookshelves. Right before he was about to crash into the one at the end of the aisle, he leaped into the air.

His momentum carried him up, up, and up — more than it should have. Suffering's eyes followed him as he soared, seemingly gliding on the dim, shadowy air, and she couldn't help but feel a little bit awed as he landed lithely and silently at the top of the bookshelf at the end, which was easily eight to ten feet high. Then he turned, sat down, dangled his feet over the edge, opened the book he had been carrying, and started reading.

_Well, that's definitely new,_ a little voice said in Suffering's head. _Maybe the kid isn't as clumsy as we all first thought._

She ignored both Unknown and the voice and continued making weird faces at the marble bust that looked like Judgment. It comforted her somehow. Every time she really made faces at the actual Judgment, he just gave her a weird look and told her the proper way to make a weird face, then he demonstrated by making a weird face at her. Each time he did this, she was almost sure he was mocking her, but the way he said it was so flat and monotoned that maybe he was being completely serious. She could never really tell.

Unknown ignored her and kept reading.

After a few minutes, during which Suffering made about thirty different weird faces as well as flipped off the bust, just to pass the time and amuse herself, and Unknown didn't move from his perch save to turn the pages, a Nightmare came trotting into the library and approached Suffering.

"What is it, Obsidian?" she asked. Obsidian was one of her father's favorite Nightmares. Fast, but in all honesty not very bright. She listened intently as it spoke to her through the universal shadow-language that all creatures of darkness understood, and groaned as it told her that her father wished to see her. She could guess what he wanted to see her for. Her idiot siblings had gotten themselves captured and she was going to have to go to war.

Looking up, she saw that Unknown was seemingly absorbed into his book. There was no sign that he had heard her conversation with Obsidian at all. But as she left with the Nightmare and glanced back up to the bookshelf, she realized that Unknown, his quarterstaff, and his book had all vanished when she hadn't been watching.

"That kid's pretty useless," remarked Suffering warily, "but he sure is creepy." Obsidian tossed her head as if in response and, shivering, Suffering shook her head and followed Obsidian to Pitch's throne room.

XXXXXXXXX

Invisibly, Unknown smiled before pulling a small journal and a pencil stub out of his pockets, comparing the notes inside to the text in his lap, and adding the final touches. He had no doubt that Suffering wouldn't come back — if eight Nightmare Children couldn't do it, one wouldn't cut it, no way.

Unless they had his advantage.

He flipped a few pages back and scanned the notes over again, double-checking to make sure it would work.

It was like a domino track — tip one domino and set off a chain, which would push a car down a slope into a pulley system and so on, until each obstacle was bypassed.

It was a plan that could bring down every magic ward in the Guardians' stronghold and it rested in his hands, even though — unknown to him — the dominos would never be tipped.

Not by him, at least.

XXXXXXXXX

"Suffering," said Pitch upon her entrance into the throne room. "My dear girl. Come closer."

Suffering made sure to emphasize her limping and staggering as she made her way towards him. She kept her lolling head down, her loose grey hair over her face, and her hand on her arm — the picture of a wounded, helpless, and possibly mentally unstable girl. Her theories were that if she appeared pathetic enough, Pitch might let her stay home…and maybe send Unknown to get captured instead. Or something like that. Hopefully.

But why did she do this? Well, she was a teenager. She was rebelling for rebellion's sake, that's all. It only came naturally.

"Suffering," said Pitch when she stopped five feet away from him, "don't be scared of me. Come closer."

She took one unstable step forward, then stopped again.

Pitch sighed, then stood and stooped next to her. He brushed her hair out of her face and tilted her chin up to meet his eyes, then he smiled comfortingly (or what he considered as smiling comfortingly). Suffering remained completely poker faced, making sure to keep her eyes unfocused and a bit crossed.

"Suffering, my dear girl," he said, "I hope you're feeling better."

A tear rolled down her cheek and she shook her head mutely, as if too pained to speak.

The all-too-obviously-fake smile on Pitch's face shrank a few molars. "Well, I know something that will make you feel better…" (and this is where Suffering started to groan, but only in her head) "…you're going to get to kidnap a Guardian!"

Suffering stared at him, blank-faced. "Nuh uh," she said stoutly, though she was thinking, _He's gonna make me do it anyway, isn't he? Of course he is! Well, it's better than actually _fighting _one of them, but not by a lot, right? _Her father was definitely going to force her to do it; he had no other options except Unknown. That choice was definitely out, proven in the last battle. Still, she was going to make this difficult for her father. Why should Danger have all the fun? "I can't go like this!"

Pitch sighed aloud and stood up. "Suffering — " he tried to say, but she was on a roll now. This was her arena.

"My hand's s-s-still cut and I c-c-can't hold my whip!" she continued, choking her voice and letting another tear fall. "H-h-how'm I supposed to defend myself if I can't hold my whip?"

Pitch narrowed his eyes and Suffering knew that she was in trouble. Okay, so maybe she _had _overdone it a little with the tearful stuttering. _Crap, _she groaned mentally. _I am so dead._

Her father towered over her, scrutinizing her carefully with his eclipse-like eyes. They traveled from her permanently scarred face to her right hand.

_Oh, what the hell, I might as well, _she thought, then she commenced in praying. _Please let it work, please let it work, don't let him see my "wounds" —_

But Suffering's vain plea to no one didn't work. Pitch knelt again and said sternly, "Let me see your hand." She held out her unwounded left hand. "No, your wounded hand." Reluctantly she held out the still-bandaged right hand, and he took it in his cold fingers. Suffering's heart started to pound as he unwrapped the bandages and revealed her unwounded greyish-green skin.

Of course, there were small scrapes and calluses from years and years of weapons practice and the afflictions of wherever she had originally come from, but no cut. By the amount of blood, and there had been a lot of blood, they had all assumed that it had just been a very deep cut that, even with the speedy healing process, would not have completely healed by now. So it was unthinkable that her hand "wound", which was really just a lot of blood smeared over her hand to make it look like she had been cut, could have healed.

"Suffering," said Pitch slowly, "your hand wasn't wounded at all, was it?"

The small seventeen-year-old hesitated, then nodded.

"And I am guessing your 'concussion' was faked, too?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Suffering shifted her weight and nodded again.

Pitch sighed yet again and gazed into her eyes, giving her a small and none too kind smile. "I suppose it was for the best," he said, "because if you had gone with them, you would have been captured. You are my last hope now, Suffering."

Suffering resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. _What about that idiot Unknown? _she wanted to scream. _He's here! Send him, not me! _But in her heart she knew that it wasn't going to happen. Pitch would only send him after Suffering went, and then after he himself went. And if they both failed, _then _he would send Unknown. But then there would be no chance for any kind of victory and no one to tell Unknown what to do, and he'd be free.

_I hate that kid, _she grumbled.

Yet, when Pitch looked into her eyes, she felt something stir inside her. Pride. Pride that her father hoped that she could become the potential hero of this story. Pride that he believed in her.

It was a curious feeling and it gave her strength and confidence, confidence in herself that she had never known that she had. "What do I have to do?" she asked, knowing that she might as well give it a shot. If something bad happened, she might be able to see her siblings again before she was tortured to death. _And oh what a joy that'll be, _she mused ruefully.

Pitch reached inside his robe and, from a hidden inside pocket, pulled out a small object. When he placed it in her hands, she found that it was a tiny dagger in a black sheath. Upon drawing it out, she saw that the four-inch blade was made out of pure, sharp red glass the color of fresh blood.

"When regular black sand is heated to its melting point," explained Pitch, "it turns into red glass. But when nightmare sand is melted, something happens to it. The one creating the glass can slip in a strain of magic, strong magic that would otherwise destroy it. And with that magic within it, the glass object can be enchanted to do anything, but only one thing per object."

"Is this one of those?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes."

"What does it do?"

"That is where you come in, my girl," said Pitch. "You will sneak into the Pole and find a Guardian; it matters not which one. But if you touch the tip of this to their forehead, then they will instantly be transported back here, and I can use them as a bargaining chip. You are not to rescue your siblings, or even try. Just get in, touch the dagger to a Guardian, and get out as fast as you can."

Suffering let a tiny smile slip past her mask. "I like the sound of that. When should I go?"

"Now would be nice."

"Then I'll go," replied Suffering, clipping the glass dagger to her belt. "I promise, Father. I won't fail you."

But as she mounted Obsidian and sped out of the lair, she didn't hear Pitch saying quietly, "You had better not."

XXXXXXXXX

She slipped in by way of the same loopholes that Danger had used earlier — North hadn't bothered to seal them up, almost as if he was daring any other Nightmare Children to come, which of course he was. Upon arrival in the Globe Room, though, she saw only one person around — the Sandman, asleep in a chair. He was a Guardian, right? He'd work.

She drew the glass dagger and crept furtively forward, silent and agile as a cat in her suede-booted feet. The little golden man didn't stir, other than the steady, soft rise and fall of his plump chest. He looked so peaceful now as he slept, but Suffering had seen and met him in action and knew not to judge him by his cover. He was dangerous and must be eliminated.

She stopped right in front of him. Still he slept, seemingly oblivious to the danger that awaited him. Suffering gripped her dagger, raised it above his shoulder level, and prepared to run to her Nightmare when it worked. Just one touch, Father had said. One touch of the tip to his head, and it would be over.

Then, a second before the blood-red tip would touch the golden man's forehead, a thick tendril of gold sand snapped around her wrist and pulled it back. Suffering had only time to yelp once before the sand rope yanked her around by her arm, spinning her and sending the glass dagger clattering on the ground. Another sand whip clamped over her other wrist and she stopped abruptly, only to find herself face-to-face with a scowling Sandman.

At least, he _was _scowling. Until he brushed back Suffering's tangled grey hair and saw her face directly for the first time.

He saw the face of a child. Thin and with a sickly greyish-green tint, it was mottled with bruises and sprinkled with cuts that never healed. Underneath a dark grey outfit that loosely resembled a prisoner's jumpsuit, the rest of her skinny, small body was no better off. She might have once been pretty, had it not been for all of the flaws that made her seem years beyond her age, yet so small and innocent at the same time. Her lips were swollen and her nose was slightly crooked, suggesting that at one time it had been broken. Her eyes were large and washed-out grey, but what alarmed Sandy was what he saw in them — pain, tears, terror, reflections of a life that she didn't remember but regretted anyway…

He saw the face of a broken little girl whose dreams had never come true.

She saw his fierce golden eyes widen and blink in shock, and his round face softened as he stared at her. Emotions flashed across his face almost too fast for her to comprehend — horror, sympathy, anger, sorrow, something that might have been kindness…

She saw the face of an ancient dreammaker who hadn't known that the one he was fighting was also a child he was charged to protect.

XXXXXXXXX

They stayed in the same position for what felt like hours, staring into each other's eyes with emotions too tangled to name, until a familiar female voice startled the two whip-wielders out of their locked trance.

"Sandy!" Tooth cried. "Sandy, you will never believe what I found — well, you might, but I hardly could when I realized — wait, what are you doing? Who's she? Oh my Moon…" The first sentence was when her mouth was running off without her brain, as mouths have a tendency to do. The second sentence was when she first saw Suffering. The third was when she looked closer at the girl's face and glimpsed the flaws.

Sandy stood up straight and controlled his sand in such a way so as to spin Suffering around to directly face Tooth. The golden sand around Suffering's right wrist brought her unresisting hand up and made her wave to the somewhat surprised fairy.

"Umm…hi?" said Tooth, waving back tentatively. "Sandy, do you want me to go get North and the others?"

He glanced at Suffering and shrugged. The girl refused to meet his eyes. Tooth nodded in reply and fluttered off, leaving them alone. Her news could wait.

Sandy kept watching Suffering. She did not try to wrestle out of her bonds, nor did she try to run. She just stood there with her head lowered in defeat. Shyly, Sandy tapped her hand to get her attention, which was actually low enough for him to reach easily. She looked at him, hatred and sorrow in those large, wet grey eyes.

He decided to try to talk to the girl. Maybe she wasn't as wild as the others, though judging by her fighting technique during the battle she was just as well trained. _I'm sorry, _he wrote with his finger, spelling out the words in curly golden dreamsand letters. Some things were too difficult to say through pictures.

Suffering shook her head and looked away. Sandy tapped her hand again and wrote new words in the air. _Don't worry. We won't hurt you._

"So you say," she snapped in a hoarse, choked voice. "Father told me and my siblings what Guardians do to Nightmare Children. I doubt if my brothers and sisters are even alive anymore."

_But they are alive, _Sandy wrote, wishing he could pound Pitch for the lies he had fed to these children.

"Right," the girl sniffed weakly. "Then why can't I feel their suffering?"

Sandy did not know how to reply to this. He didn't know how she could "feel their suffering", but he supposed it was kind of like how Pitch could sense fear. And if this was true, he knew why she couldn't feel anything — not because they were dead, but because right now North was delivering their meals of Christmas cookies, candy canes, and hot cocoa. He had a feeling she wouldn't believe him anyway, so the little man just shook his head and looked away.

A few minutes later, Bunny bounded into the room with Tooth, North, and Jack in tow. North had another power-blocking collar at the ready, along with one of his swords, just in case. Unlike what her siblings would have done if they had been conscious when captured, which they hadn't, Suffering did not resist when North clipped it around her neck and disarmed her. Sandy released her from the sand bonds, and the Guardians led their unresisting prisoner down to Cell One.

XXXXXXXXX

The other ten prisoners of Cell One were no longer acting like prisoners. Because of the cold in the lower levels of the Pole — which kept increasing because Jack liked to visit Tempest — North had given each of the Nightmare Children a Christmas sweater in place of the dirty black jackets most of them wore. At first the children had refused to wear them and, when North had inquired why, Judgment stepped forward and explained patiently that Nightmare Children simply did not and _could not _wear bright colors. Except for Danger, who loved red for some unexplainable reason.

Anyway, so North had reluctantly exchanged the bright Rudolf-patterned sweaters for plain black ones, and the children had accepted gladly. When Jack came down to visit Tempest next — which was the fifth time in three hours — Danger complained loudly that if Jack was going to be seeing her sister this much, she should at least bring a thermal blanket when they got married. Tempest had swiped Loss's sharp rock and thrown it at her younger sister's invincible yet oftentimes empty head, which caused another highly amusing prison brawl. Solitude had happily provided the commentary and quickly became another victim.

Right now they were drinking hot cocoa and trading cookies. They had each gotten a heaping plate of cookies, along with several candy canes each, and were sorting and trading the ones they liked and didn't like. Tempest liked triple chocolate chunk, Danger liked sugar cookies, Dark — who had woken up about half an hour ago and preferred to stay as far away from the lights as he could by hiding in the shadows of the other Nightmare Children — liked the burnt ones, Judgment liked oatmeal raisin (which there were none of), and Death liked snickerdoodles. Those were just some of the examples.

They had even started playing poker for the cookies because there were so many of them and were finally beginning to actually enjoy themselves, but they all went silent when the Guardians came in with Suffering. The girl's head was down and her hair obscured her face as always. Halfway down the hallway she stumbled over nothing, as she had a tendency to do when her vision was blurred by tears, and fell to her hands and knees.

The Guardians went to help her, but Tooth and Sandy got there first. Tooth and Sandy's eyes met as they helped the girl up, and several silent messages passed between them. Tooth nodded and zipped off.

"Where's Tooth going?" asked Jack.

Sandy just smiled ruefully at the winter spirit before helping Suffering sit down on the ground. The girl was sobbing into her hands.

_What's wrong? _asked Sandy through his sand words.

"I — I've failed," she wept. "I j-just wanted to make F-Father proud…but…I've failed."

The little dreammaker placed one hand on her shoulder comfortingly and said no more. A second later, Tooth burst into the corridor and darted to Suffering's side. She was holding a wet washcloth in her hands.

"Hey," Tooth smiled gently. "Look at me. Let me see those wounds."

"They won't heal," croaked Suffering. "They've never healed, ever."

"Never?" repeated Tooth incredulously. "Oh, you poor thing…"

"Umm…Tooth?" inquired Bunny. "What are — what — ?" The Pooka didn't seem to be capable of finishing his question.

Tooth stared at him with those large violet eyes. "What am I doing?" she finished, a note of steel lacing her voice. "I'm trying to show this girl that she does matter. That she's not just a tool to be used by Pitch."

Everyone was stone silent for quite a while. "Tooth?" inquired North. "Do you know something that we don't?"

Hurriedly, Tooth explained to the Guardians and the Nightmare Children what she had managed to piece together about the real origins of the children, then she started to tell them her plan.

Danger was the first to react. "Oh yeah? And how do we know you're not lying?"

"Because I'm not!" cried Tooth. "Why would I lie?"

"To persuade us to join you, possibly," suggested Death as if it was obvious.

Tooth hesitated. She hadn't thought of that. She knew they wouldn't believe her at first, but she had anticipated waiting a little bit before telling them. Now she had to come up with a sensible explanation, and fast. "Look," she said finally. "There's no way to prove that I'm not lying until we get your memories back. And to do that, I need your guys' help."

"Tooth," said Jack, but she ignored him.

"So will you help me? Please?" she asked, but then she faltered when she met the scowling black eyes of Judgment.

"We don't know if you are telling the truth," he said, taking on his official, studious manner, "and even if you were, we have no motivation other than a few useless memories to help you."

"Actually, Feather Head is right," interjected Tempest grimly, also standing. "Those tooth boxes might just be our way to find out who we really are. It's true; Dad's been using us as tools to wipe out his enemies. Think about it!" she said with a fire in her blue eyes, turning to her siblings. She'd been born a natural orator; making people really think about things was what she did. "He's pushed every one of us for this since the day we woke up. _Ten flipping years_ of training and practice, just for revenge. And if you don't like that, then tough." She could feel her powers pushing out through her fingertips and though the collar stopped her from using them, she still felt the familiar tingling under her skin and the wind in her hair.

Her adoptive siblings stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. "You — you can't possibly be thinking of — of _joining the Guardians,_ are you?" spluttered Judgment.

"Call me naïve," said Tempest coolly, leaning against the wall and trying to keep her infamous temper in check, "but I'm actually considering it."

_"__What?!"_ gasped Judgment, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

"So you'll help me?" asked Tooth hopefully.

Tempest's indifferent smirk never wavered. "I never said that. I just said that I was considering it. If you want to sneak into Father's lair and rummage through his underwear drawers for twelve boxes of decade-old baby teeth, be my guest. But that's a tad too treasonous, even for me."

Tooth's hopeful smile fell. She had been hoping for some support from at least one of these kids, but now that she saw no one was going to help her she realized that she was now on her own. Then her face hardened with resolve. "Fine, then," she said. "If you won't help me, I'll go alone. And I'll prove to you that we're trying to help you."

"But Tooth!" burst Jack impulsively. "You can't go!"

He saw in his peripheral vision her hand unconsciously rubbing the shiny pommel of the curved saber she had picked up after the fight and taken to carrying around wherever she went. "Why not, Jack?"

"It's too dangerous," he replied as if this was the most obvious answer in the world.

"It's the only way," she said. "More people would attract attention. This is a stealth mission."

"Right," came Danger's snarky voice from inside the cell. "Like a flying bird-woman with swords and glittering feathers inside a shadow palace is _not _going to stand out. Real stealthy, sure."

"No, I meant, it's too dangerous for you," Jack said, ignoring Danger's comment.

"Me?" inquired Tooth. She knew where he was going with this, but she was going to give him a chance to save himself. "Why me?"

If he hadn't seen the fire in her eyes and didn't at that time catch a glimpse of that warrior of long ago, he might have told her the straight truth — that she was a woman, and the weakest of the five Guardians. But he didn't dare now. Any weakness that she had formerly shown was gone.

"Because I'm a girl?" she said for him.

Meekly, Jack nodded. He had no other words.

She cocked her head, then said, "Well, this girl is about to show you what she can really do."

And with that, Tooth raised her wings and fluttered off with her three little lieutenants in tow, ready to infiltrate the lair of the Nightmare King. "If I never come back, have a nice funeral for me!" she called as she left.

Everything was silent as the doors leading out of the prison corridors slammed shut behind her. This silence was broken when Shame sang, "Oooooooohhhhh…"

Jack turned a glare towards the silver-haired girl that could literally freeze a swimming pool in the summer. "What?"

"You just got rejected," she grinned.

Bunny snickered. "And here I thought Danger was the snarky one."

"Shut up, fuzzball." Danger stuck her tongue out at him.

Jack just rolled his eyes.

XxXxX

**Okay. Please don't leave yet.**

**My friend's using a system called "GRQs", or Guided Review Questions. This is a huge project for me and you guys have no idea how much reviews help, but I'm not getting a whole lot of them. So I really need a couple questions answered so I know how to keep going in the part of the story where I am (much further forward in the timeline if you wanna ask where) because this really is one of my biggest projects yet and I need all the help I can get — even if it's back here, where Mystic already did an amazing editing job.**

**Okay, here we go.**

**1.) What do you like/dislike about the Nightmare Children? Any favorites/non-favorites? Why do you like/loathe them?**

**2.) If you hate Tempest too say "I".**

**3.) Are there any relationships between any of them, or even any of the Guardians, that you want to see expanded on? How?**

**4.) Do you like all the humor? Are you waiting for more action? More angst?**

**5.) Protective!Jack and snarky!Tooth? Thoughts?**

**6.) What do you think about the way Pitch got the kids? Believable, not believable? Any flaws you can think about regarding this? How do you think the kids will react when/if they see their memories?**

**And finally, the most amusing one…**

**7.) What do you think is going to happen next?**

**Please try to answer these, and if you have any other thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Thanks guys — and PLEASE DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT THE HORMONES. GODS. 0—0**


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